Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot as he gave a campaign speech Friday in western Japan and airlifted to a hospital, but the country’s national public broadcaster NHK said later that he had succumbed to his injuries. Multiple Japanese and international news outlets cited officials from Abe’s political party and the regional hospital where he was treated as confirming his death.
Local fire department official Makoto Morimoto said Abe was in cardiopulmonary arrest, or CPA, meaning he was not breathing and his heart had stopped, even as he was airlifted to the hospital.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that police had arrested a male suspect at the scene of the attack.
“A barbaric act like this is absolutely unforgivable, no matter what the reasons are, and we condemn it strongly,” Matsuno said.
Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who belongs to the same political party as Abe, returned to Tokyo by helicopter from his own campaign destination of Yamagata, in northern Japan. He told reporters earlier that he was “not aware of the motives and background behind this attack, but this attack is an act of brutality that happened during the elections — the very foundation of our democracy — and is absolutely unforgivable.”
NHK aired video of Abe collapsed on the street with several security guards running toward him. He was reportedly shot a few minutes after he started talking outside a train station in western Nara. In videos posted to social media at least two apparent gunshots can be heard as a man resembling Abe speaks, and a white plume of smoke is seen behind the former prime minister.
According to Japan’s Kyodo news agency, Abe suffered gunshot wounds to his neck and chest, but doctors at the hospital where he was treated later said it was two wounds to the neck that claimed his life.
NHK, quoting multiple military sources, said the suspect was employed for three years in Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, until 2005. The network described the weapon used in the attack as homemade. Police said the suspect had told them he was dissatisfied with Abe and wanted to kill him.
Other videos posted online show campaign officials surrounding Abe in an apparent attempt to treat the popular former leader, who was still influential in the governing Liberal Democratic Party and headed its largest faction, Seiwakai. Elections for Japan’s upper house, the less powerful chamber of its parliament, are Sunday.
The attack was a shock in a country that’s one of the world’s safest and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.