The first chilling image of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s killer standing just yards behind him moments before he struck has emerged. In the picture he looks mild and unassuming, in a faded green t-shirt, green fatigues and a mask concealing his bespectacled face as others clap the arrival of the man who was a former world leader.
According to the Daily Mail, Gunman Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, blasted Mr Abe, 67 around 11.30am in the city of Nara as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister gave a campaign speech ahead of elections on Sunday. He was rushed to hospital with wounds to his heart and neck and died from massive blood loss shortly after 5 pm.
Yamagami shot Mr. Abe twice with a homemade shotgun made out of two pieces of pipe attached to a wooden board, with a grip and electronic firing mechanism fitted underneath. It is not clear what kind of ammunition or gunpowder he used.
Detectives raiding his home revealed an arsenal of homemade pistols and ‘possible explosives’, which were taken them away to be disposed of. Yamagami has also told police that he manufactured multiple handguns, which are otherwise illegal to own in Japan.
It is not known how exactly Yamagami learned to make the weapons or explosives, but he is a veteran of the country’s defence forces – having served in the navy between 2002 and 2005. He has admitted to the shooting, telling police he wanted to kill Abe because he was ‘frustrated’ with the former leader – though insists the grudge was not related to his politics.
Mr Abe was a towering figure in Japanese politics: Serving two terms from 2006 to 2007, and then again from 2012 until poor health forced him to resign in 2020. He remained hugely influential within the Liberal Democratic Party even after office, and was in Nara to support the local candidate ahead of Sunday’s ballot.
Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called the shooting an attack on ‘the foundation of democracy’, describing it as ‘heinous’, ‘barbaric and malicious’, and ‘absolutely unforgivable’. ‘I would like to use the most extreme words available to condemn this act,’ he added.
Friday’s shocking assassination of Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in one of the world’s safest countries stunned leaders and drew condemnation, with Iran calling it an “act of terrorism” while Spain slammed the “cowardly attack.”
Abe, 67, was shot from behind in Nara in western Japan while giving a campaign speech. He was airlifted to a hospital but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital. Abe was Japan’s longest-serving leader before stepping down in 2020 for health reasons.
According to The AP, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who hastily returned to Tokyo from campaign events around the country, called the shooting “dastardly and barbaric.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking with the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers at a trilateral meeting in Bali, said Abe’s assassination was “profoundly disturbing” and a “personal loss for so many people.”
“For the United States, Prime Minister Abe was an extraordinary partner and someone who clearly was a great leader for Japan and the Japanese people,” Blinken said, adding that Abe, during his time in office, “brought the relationship between our countries — the United States and Japan — to new heights.”
Shootings are uncommon in the island nation, but not unheard of. There were 10 incidents last year, leaving one person dead and four wounded, according to the National Policy Agency. For civilians, obtaining weapons — mainly rifles and shotguns for sport or hunting — requires an intensive licensing and background check process. Police are usually armed with handguns.
The suspect who shot Abe was identified by Japanese media as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41. He was immediately seized by the government’s Security Police, who are charged with protecting senior politicians and officials. As a former prime minister, Abe had a security detail, and at least one of them had a bulletproof shield. Television reports showed what appeared to be two long tubes wrapped together with black tape on the ground, thought to be a crudely assembled weapon.
“This actually shows the extent that Japan gun laws are working,” said Daniel Foote, a professor at the University of Tokyo specializing in law and society. “Very few people have the ability to create such a weapon.”
The incident comes less than a week after a deadly mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade outside of Chicago, where Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, 21, was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. There have been more than 300 mass-shooting incidents in the US in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
