The country’s longest serving Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was delivering an election campaign speech when he was shot in Nara Province and died later.
Shinzo Abe has succumbed to his wounds after being shot while delivering an election campaign speech in the city of Nara, local media reported.
The NHK broadcaster and the Kyodo news agency reported Abe’s death on Friday, hours after the 67-year-old was shot in the chest and the neck.
Earlier, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had condemned the attack in the “strongest terms” and said he was praying “from the depths” of his heart Abe would survive.
The motive for the attack was not yet known, added Kishida, who cut short a campaign appearance in the northern prefecture of Yamagata and returned by helicopter to his official residence in the capital, Tokyo.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters Abe, who was in Nara campaigning ahead of Sunday’s election for the parliament’s upper house, had been shot at about 11:30am (02:30 GMT). “Such an act of barbarity cannot be tolerated,” Matsuno said.
Quoting Japanese police, NHK said Abe appeared to have been shot from behind with a shotgun and said its reporter on the scene heard “what sounded like a gun going off twice”.
The broadcaster aired footage showing Abe collapsed on the street, with several security guards running towards him. Abe was holding his chest when he collapsed, with his shirt smeared with blood.
