BREAKING: former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe shot dead

 

Country’s longest-serving prime minister shot while making campaign speech in Nara. Plus, UN warns of looming ‘hunger catastrophe’ due to Russian blockade

Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died, aged 67, after being shot while making a campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

In footage broadcast by Japanese media, two loud bangs were heard – possibly from a shotgun – and Abe was seen falling to the ground after the second shot. TBS Television reported that he was hit on the left side of his chest and apparently also in the neck.

A suspect, a 41-year-old man from Nara named by police as Tetsuya Yamagami, was arrested at the scene, the public broadcaster NHK said.

Abe was the country’s longest-serving prime minister. He resigned in 2020. The current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, condemned the shooting as “barbaric and malicious” and said the motive of the suspect, reportedly a member of the maritime self-defence force from 2002 to 2005, was as yet unclear.

How did the suspect obtain the weapon? Japan has a near zero tolerance of gun ownership and an extremely low rate of gun crime. The weapon used is reportedly thought to have been homemade.