The international community and Japan are in shock. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe died on Friday following being the target of an attack during an electoral rally in Nara, in the west of the Japan. As Japanese police began a search of the suspect’s home this morning, 20 Minutes returns to the assassination attempt once morest the former Japanese Prime Minister.
What happened this Friday in Nara, Japan?
Shinzo Abe, the 67-year-old former chief executive of Japan, was delivering a speech at a campaign rally ahead of Sunday’s senatorial elections on Friday when gunshots were heard, national broadcaster NHK reported. Shinzo Abe, who had come to support Kei Sato, a local candidate from his political party, collapsed and was bleeding from the neck, a source from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) told the Jiji news agency.
“He was giving a speech and a man came up from behind” and fired twice, a young woman at the scene told NHK. “The first shot sounded like a toy. He didn’t fall and there was a big bang. The second shot was more visible, you might see the spark and smoke, she added. After the second shot, people surrounded him and gave him heart massage. »
This Friday, Shinzo Abe eventually died. “Shinzo Abe was taken (to hospital) at 12:20 p.m. He was in a state of cardio-respiratory arrest when he arrived. (The doctors) tried to resuscitate him. However, he sadly passed away at 5:03 p.m.,” said Hidetada Fukushima, a professor of emergency medicine at Nara Medical University Hospital. Also according to NHK, Shinzo Abe was able to say a few words to the people around him following the attack, before losing consciousness.
Who is the man suspected of shooting Shinzo Abe?
According to police sources cited by Japanese media, the arrested suspect is a 41-year-old Japanese man named Tetsuya Yamagami. This resident of Nara served for three years in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, the Japanese Navy, until 2005. The suspect, who was immediately tackled to the ground and arrested by the police, confessed to having committed the crime, a senior police official said on Friday. “The suspect said he held a grudge once morest a certain organization and he confessed to committing the crime because he believed former Prime Minister Abe was related to him,” the policeman told reporters, declining to elaborate. details.
Tetsuya Yamagami would have made his own firearm, while the restrictions once morest these weapons in Japan are extremely strong and where it is very difficult to obtain a port of weapons. According to NHKhe allegedly told investigators following his arrest that he was “frustrated” with Shinzo Abe and that he shot him with the intention of killing him.
Where is the investigation?
Japanese police entered the home of the suspect in the shooting attack a few hours earlier on former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Nara (west) this morning, according to images from public television NHK . Footage showed several police officers wearing protective gear, helmets and shields entering a building identified by NHK as the home of the man arrested for attempted murder soon following the attack. During this search potentially explosive products were found, according to the public television channel.
What are the reactions of the international community?
A large part of the world leaders spoke this morning in favor of the former Japanese Prime Minister. Starting with the French President Emmanuel Macron who said he was “deeply shocked by the heinous attack”.
China also said it was “shocked” by the attempted murder, expressing its “sympathy” for his family. Ditto for the United States, through the voice of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said he was “deeply concerned” by such an attack. The President of the Council European Charles Michel said he was “shocked and saddened by the cowardly attack” on Thursday once morest the former Japanese Prime Minister, whom he described as a “true friend, fierce defender of the multilateral order and democratic values” .
The general secretary of theI’ll take it, Jens Stoltenberg, expressed himself in a tweet as “deeply shocked” by a “heinous” attack and assured that the Alliance, of which Tokyo is a close ally, “stands with” the Japanese and their government. The future ex-British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson also said this Friday “dismayed and saddened” following the “abject” bullet attack once morest Shinzo Abe.
Finally, Russia denounced “a monstrous crime” and an “act of terrorism”, referring to the attack. “We are confident that those who engineered and committed this monstrous crime will be duly punished for this act of terrorism which has and cannot have any justification,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Who was Shinzo Abe?
Shinzo Abe was 52 when he first became head of government in 2006, the youngest in his country’s post-war era. He made an impression during his second term in power (2012-2020) with a bold economic recovery policy and intense diplomatic activity, but which left a deep feeling of incompleteness.
Shinzo Abe has made a name for himself especially abroad with his dubbed economic policy « Abenomics » launched from the end of 2012, combining monetary easing, massive fiscal stimulus and structural reforms. It has recorded certain successes, such as a notable increase in the activity rate of women and seniors, as well as greater recourse to immigration in the face of labor shortages.
Having built part of its reputation on its firmness vis-à-vis the North Korea, Abe also advocated a Japan uninhibited from its past: in particular, he refused to bear the burden of repentance for the abuses of the Japanese army in China and on the Korean peninsula in the first half of the 20th century. The politician also tried not to offend the Russian president Vladimir Poutine. His hope? Settle the dispute over the Southern Kuril Islands, annexed by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and never returned to Japan.