TOKYO – Shinzo Abe, Japan’s former prime minister, was in critical condition after being shot Friday morning while delivering a speech in western Japan, according to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Images on social media showed Mr. Abe, 67, collapsed and bled to the ground in the city of Nara, near Kyoto. The Japan Fire and Disaster Management Agency said that Mr. Abe had suffered a gunshot wound to his right neck and left chest.
Police said they had arrested a suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, accused of attempted murder. The suspect had used “gun-like equipment,” which was recovered at the scene, a police spokesman said.
Images shared on social media showed a man approached after the shooting near Yamatosaidaiji station. The man was a resident of Nara, according to NHK, the public broadcaster. The detailed motive for the shooting was not made public immediately.
Mr Kishida, who had been campaigning in Yamagata prefecture and returned to Tokyo after the shooting, said at a news conference that the attack had been an “atrocious act”, adding: “It is barbaric and malicious, and cannot be tolerated. “
He added: “Currently, doctors are doing everything they can. Right now, I am waiting and praying for former Prime Minister Abe to survive this.”
Seigo Yasuhara, an official at the Nara Fire Brigade Command Center, said that after the shooting, Mr. Abe had been in cardiopulmonary arrest and had been taken by an ambulance – unconscious and without vital signs – to a medical evacuation helicopter. . . He was then taken to Nara Medical University Hospital, the Nara Fire Department said.
Hirokazu Matsuno, chief secretary of Prime Minister Kishida’s cabinet, said a crisis management center had been set up in the prime minister’s office.
Mr. Abe was the longest-serving prime minister in the country and served two terms, from 2006 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2020. He resigned in 2020 due to health issues.
The former prime minister was in Nara campaigning ahead of Sunday’s upper house parliamentary elections. Mr. Abe was making a campaign speech on behalf of Kei Sato, 43, a current member of the Upper House who is running for re-election in Nara. He had been talking for less than a minute when two loud explosive noises were heard behind him around 11:30 p.m.
Yoshio Ogita, 74, general secretary of the Liberal Democrat chapter of Nara prefecture, was on Mr. Abe’s side. He said he heard two loud sounds and saw a plume of white smoke rising into the sky.
Mr. Abe fell from a small 20-inch stand, where he had stood so that he could rise above the crowd.
“I didn’t know what had happened,” Mr. Ogita in a phone interview Friday afternoon. “I saw him sink.”
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