Former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot during a speech in the city of Nara, according to reports. Abe was reportedly attacked by a man from behind while he was delivering the speech on a street. Police said that they have captured the man and are questioning him, according to reports.
Abe died today after being shot twice at a campaign event in the Nara region, the hospital treating him confirmed. Doctors who attended to him in the hospital say “bullet penetrated the heart”.
“There was a gaping hole in the heart attributed to the gun wound,” a doctor said. He was shot twice in the neck, doctors have said.
Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister
An NHK reporter on the site heard something that sounded like a gunshot and saw Abe bleeding said Japan’s NHK WORLD News.
Abe, 67, collapsed on the site and was bleeding from the neck, a source from his ruling Liberal Democratic Party told the Jiji news agency.
One man, believed to be the shooter, has been taken into custody, chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said. Local media identified the man as 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, citing police sources. Explosives have been found at his house, say, officials.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, held office in 2006 for one year and again from 2012 to 2020.