Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot during an election speech on Friday morning. The shocking incident took place in Nara town where he was addressing an election meeting ahead of Sunday’s polling for the Upper House of the Parliament.
According to reports, he was rushed to the hospital when he collapsed and is in “cardiopulmonary arrest”. Abe was airlifted from the site and admitted to a hospital. As per the aired footage, Abe collapsed on the street, with several security guards running toward him.
Abe was holding his chest when he collapsed, with his shirt smeared with blood.
A man in his 40s, who appeared to have shot Abe in the back, had been arrested for attempted murder and a gun had been confiscated from him.
Shinzo Abe, 67, was making a speech at the campaign event and “a man came from behind”, a young woman told NHK. According to reports, Shinzo Abe collapsed after a second shot was fired. Several media reports said he appeared to have been shot from behind, possibly with a shotgun.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, held office in 2006 for one year and again from 2012 to 2020, when he was forced to step down due to the debilitating bowel condition ulcerative colitis.
Japan has some of the world’s toughest gun-control laws, and annual deaths from firearms in the country of 125 million people are regularly in single figures. Getting a gun license is a long and complicated process even for Japanese citizens, who must first get a recommendation from a shooting association and then undergo strict police checks.