Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot while speaking at an election event, died in hospital. The person who shot Abe was identified as 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, a former member of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was shot in the chest during a speech at an outdoor event in support of the election campaign of a Liberal Democratic Party candidate in the city of Nara, Japan’s state broadcaster NHK reported.
NHK television broadcast footage showing Abe collapsing on the street and security guards giving first aid. It was announced that Abe, who collapsed in blood, was hospitalized.
ONE SUSPECT IN CUSTODY
NHK channel reported that police detained a male suspect at the scene. The man who shot Abe was identified as 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, a resident of Nara and a former member of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
HE LOST HIS LIFE
Japan’s state television and the Jiji news agency announced that Abe, who suffered from heart failure following an armed attack, had died in hospital.
Heart failure is used when the heart is unable to pump enough blood and supply the rest of the body with oxygen. In Japan, authorities use the term ‘heart failure’ to refer to a situation in which a person is no longer alive but has not been officially declared dead, AP reports.
Abe was campaigning in Nara on Friday for Sunday’s elections for the upper house of parliament.
Abe, who resigned in 2020, said it was “regrettable” to leave many of his goals unfinished, including the issue of Japanese abducted by North Korea, the territorial dispute with Russia and the constitutional revision.
The issue of constitutional revision had made him a ‘divisive figure’ in his country. On the other hand, Japan, where shootings are rare, has one of the strictest gun control laws in the world.
Who is former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe?
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (67) was seriously injured in an armed attack in the city of Nara in his country. Abe, the longest serving prime minister in Japan, is also the latest prime minister to take office in the country after World War II and the first Japanese prime minister born after the war.
Shinzo Abe was born in Nagata, Japan in 1954.
Born into a political family, Abe’s grandfather Kan Abe and father Shintarō Abe were also politicians. His mother, Yōko Kishi, was the daughter of former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.
He later moved to the United States to study political science at the University of Southern California. In April 1979, he began working at Kobe Steel.
In 1982, she left the company and worked in various positions: authorized assistant, Foreign Minister, private secretary to the chairman of the session of the LDP’s General Council, and secretary to the LDP’s General Secretariat.
On September 9, 2007, he suspended the plan to withdraw Japanese Navy personnel serving in Afghanistan.
RESIGNED IN 2007
Shinzo Abe resigned as Prime Minister of Japan on September 12, 2007, citing health problems.
RE-ELECTED IN 2012
He received 328 out of 478 votes and became the Prime Minister of Japan for the second time. Re-elected Prime Minister, Abe became the 7th Prime Minister to be elected in the last 6.5 years. He took office on December 26, 2012.
On August 28, 2020, Abe resigned as Prime Minister and Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, citing a recurrence of ulcerative colitis.
