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Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was delivering a speech when he was shot, apparently in the chest. Abe was rushed to a hospital bleeding and showing no vital signs after the attack.
NHK public television aired footage showing 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.
Shinzo Abe shot during a speech. Aerial visuals from Nara City
Watch: Video of how Japan ex-PM Shinzo Abe was shot
Shinzo Abe was in Nara campaigning ahead of Sunday’s election for the parliament’s upper house and was giving a speech when people heard a gunshot.
“He was giving a speech and a man came from behind,” a young woman at the scene told NHK.
“The first shot sounded like a toy. He didn’t fall and there was a large bang. The second shot was more visible, you could see the spark and smoke,” she added.
“After the second shot, people surrounded him and gave him cardiac massage.”
Abe, 67, collapsed and was bleeding from the neck, a source from his ruling Liberal Democratic Party told the Jiji news agency.
Police arrested a male suspect at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder. The gun has also been confiscated, reports said.
Abe, 67, stepped down as prime minister in 2020 because he said a chronic health problem has resurfaced. Abe has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and has said the condition was controlled with treatment.
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 licence 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.
-With inputs from agencies
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