Shinzo Abe death: shock in Japan at killing of
former PM during election campaign
Police believe attacker bore grudge against Abe as
some critics question level of security surrounding Japan’s longest-serving PM
Justin
McCurry in Nara
Sat 9 Jul
2022 01.42 BST
Sorrow and
disbelief descended on Japan after Shinzo Abe – the former prime minister and a
towering political figure – was shot dead while giving a campaign speech on
Friday morning.
Abe, 67,
was pronounced dead early in the evening, prompting a flood of tributes from
current and former world leaders, and anger that a politician could be gunned
down in broad daylight in one of the world’s safest societies two days before
an election.
Abe, the
country’s longest-serving prime minister, who resigned in 2020, was flown to
hospital by helicopter after the attack outside Yamato Saidaiji railway station
in Nara, an ancient capital in the country’s west known for its Buddhist
temples and free-roaming deer.
As the light
faded on Friday, supporters and local residents visited the scene of the attack
– a pedestrian crossing next to a white guardrail – where Abe had been calling
on voters to re-elect his Liberal Democratic party (LDP) colleague Kei Sato in
this Sunday’s upper house elections when he was shot.
Alone and
in pairs, they stepped forward to lay flowers, bottles of sports drink, slices
of watermelon wrapped in cellophane, and bags of sweets. They bowed and clasped
their hands in prayer; some shed tears and lowered their heads again as they
turned towards banks of TV cameras.
“I was
having a cigarette break near the station when I heard a huge bang,” a local
traffic control employee who declined to give his name told the Guardian.
“There was white smoke everywhere. I wouldn’t say people were panicking … like
me, they initially had no idea what was going on.”
Abe was
only minutes into his speech and had just raised his fist to make a point when
he stumbled and fell after two shots were fired from behind him at close range.
Seconds later, men thought to be members of Japan’s secret service tackled a
suspect to the ground in a dramatic intervention caught on video.
The suspect
was named as Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old resident of Nara who spent three
years in the maritime self-defence forces until 2005. Police believe he had
crafted a homemade gun. The weapon appeared from TV footage to comprise two
cylindrical metallic parts heavily bound in black tape.
Police said
they were investigating whether he had acted alone. He reportedly said he had
wanted to kill Abe because he was “dissatisfied” with him over issues unrelated
to politics. The suspect said he bore a grudge against a “specific
organisation” and believed Abe was part of it, police said, adding that it was
not clear if the unnamed organisation actually existed.
Several
similar homemade weapons to the one used in the attack were confiscated during
a search of the suspect’s house.
Makoto
Ichikawa, a local businessman who had been near the train station waiting for
his wife, said Yamagami “came out of nowhere on to the middle of the road
holding a gun”. He said he was struck by the assailant’s “normal” expression.
Ken
Namikawa, the mayor of a nearby town, used a microphone to call for people with
medical experience to help Abe. A photograph taken at about the same time
showed Abe lying face up, blood on his white shirt and surrounded by several
people, at least one of whom was administering heart massage.
Abe was
airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his
heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead after emergency treatment that
included massive blood transfusions, hospital officials said.
Hidetada
Fukushima, the head of the emergency department at Nara Medical University,
said the attack inflicted major damage to Abe’s heart, in addition to two neck
wounds that damaged an artery, causing extensive bleeding. Abe was in a state
of cardiopulmonary arrest when he arrived at the hospital and never regained
his vital signs, Fukushima said.
The
psychological fallout from an assassination by a gunman in a country where gun
crime is almost unheard of is hard to gauge at this early stage. But Abe’s
death, coming at the end of an election campaign, will almost certainly prompt
a rethink of the tradition of bringing politicians into close contact with
voters.
Some
parties announced that their senior members would halt campaigning for Sunday’s
election, but the ruling LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito said
canvassing would resume on Saturday.
An official
of the Nara prefectural police department said the department would look into
whether security at the event was sufficient and take appropriate action.
Several commentators said security around Abe should have been stronger.
Several
Japanese prime ministers were assassinated in the prewar era, but Abe is the
first sitting or former premier to have been killed since the days of
militarism.
There have
been other politically motivated killings in more recent times, however. In
1960 the leader of the Japan Socialist party, Inejiro Asanuma, was assassinated
during a speech in by a rightwing youth armed with a samurai short sword. In
2007 the mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Ito, was shot dead by a member of a yakuza
crime syndicate.
Japan’s
current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said Abe had demonstrated “great
leadership” during his time in office, adding that he was “lost for words”.
“I have
great respect for the legacy Shinzo Abe left behind and I offer my deepest
condolences,” a visibly upset Kishida said after abandoning a campaign stop and
returning to Tokyo. “This attack is an act of brutality that happened during
the elections – the very foundation of our democracy – and is absolutely
unforgivable.”
Joe Biden,
who is dealing with a summer of mass shootings in the US, said: “Gun violence
always leaves a deep scar on the communities that are affected by it.” He added
in a Twitter post that he was “stunned, outraged, and deeply saddened by the
news that my friend Abe Shinzo, former prime minister of Japan, was shot and
killed. He was a champion of the friendship between our people. The United
States stands with Japan in this moment of grief”.
Abe was a
divisive leader, adored by conservatives who had tired of decades of official
soul-searching over Japan’s wartime conduct, but loathed by progressives who
watched on with horror as he used his party’s comfortable majority in
parliament to loosen some of the legal shackles on the country’s military,
known as the self-defence forces.
Among his
admirers were Rami Miyamoto, a 23-year-old company employee who had stopped to
watch Abe’s speech on the way to a work meeting. “I’m in a state of shock,” she
said. “I followed Abe’s career as prime minister and admired what he was trying
to do for Japan. I’ll remember him as someone who faced huge challenges but always
came back and carried on. I will never forgive the person who did this.”
Yuji Izawa
was working from home when he heard helicopters overhead. Moments later he
received a news alert saying Abe had been shot. “My home isn’t that far away,
so I came to find out what was happening,” said Izawa, who works in telecoms.
“I was praying that he was going to be OK, but …” he trailed off. “How
could something this terrible have happened in Japan?
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