Shinzo Abe, Japan’s former PM assasinated while delivering speech during campaign

The longest-serving Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, was assassinated by a shooter while he was giving a speech during a campaign on Friday, July 8, in Nara, Japan.

The longest-serving Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, was assassinated by a shooter while he was giving a speech during a campaign on Friday, July 8, in Nara, Japan.

Abe was delivering a speech when he was shot. People who were at the event heard two loud shots accompained by smoke that confused the whole incident. Reportedly, the former PM of Japan suffered bullet wounds.

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Police have caught one suspect, aged 41, a local man and Defense sources state the suspect worked for the Maritime Self Defence Force for over three years till around 2005.

The suspect have been identified as Tetsuya Yamagami by the authorities. The weapon was also recovered from the scene of the incident.

Journalist Sonja Blaschke in Tokyo said several people have “criticised the violence as the nation is not used to occurrences like this. The question is how the assailant could get past security.”

Abe has remainded a primary figure within the present ruling Liberal Democratic Party where he managed a dominant faction. He was known to be a hardline conservative within his party and served as the Chief Cabinet Secretary in 2005 – 2006 under the rule of Junichiro Koizumi.

He was then appointed as the president of the Liberal Democratic Party and initiated to be the prime minister of Japan in 2006 at the age of 52 and was the youngest prime minister since the World War 2.

He served from 2006 to 2007 and then again was elected in 2012 to 2020, before stepping down because of critical health problems. He then disclosed he was being treated for a chronic intestinal disease, ulcerative colitis.

Abe had good relations with Washington but relation with neighboring nations China and Korea had strained over the years because of his views of right-wing nationalist.

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Plans for former prime minister’s funeral has not been announced yet.