Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe critically wounded in shooting: officials – National | Globalnews.ca

Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe was in critical condition after he was shot during a campaign speech in the western city of Nara on Friday.

Current prime minister Fumio Kishida told a news conference in Tokyo that doctors were “fighting to save” the 67-year-old’s life, after officials said Abe was in heart failure when he was airlifted to hospital.

“This is not a forgivable act,” said Kishida, who suspending his own campaign events and rushed back to Tokyo after the shooting.

Police said a 41-year-old man suspected of carrying out the shooting had been arrested.

“Such an act of barbarity cannot be tolerated,” Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters at a media briefing shortly after the attack.

Kyodo News and public broadcaster NHK said witnesses heard a gunshot, followed by Abe collapsing to the ground bleeding. An NHK reporter on the scene said they could hear two consecutive bangs during Abe’s speech.

NHK aired footage showing Abe holding his chest when he collapsed, with his shirt smeared with blood, as several security guards ran toward him.

Officials said Abe was shot in the neck, he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He had been able to speak after collapsing but later fell unconscious, fire officials and paramedics said.

The term heart failure means the heart cannot sufficiently pump blood and supply necessary oxygen to the rest of the body. In Japan, officials sometimes use the term to describe situations where victims are no longer alive but before a formal declaration of death has been made.

The attack was a shock in a country that’s one of the world’s safest and with some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere.

Nara prefectural police confirmed the arrest of a suspect for alleged attempted murder and identified him as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41. NHK reported that the suspect served in the Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years in the 2000s.

Video broadcast by NHK showed security guards leaping on top of a man in gray shirt, who lies face down on the pavement. A double-barreled device which appeared to be a handmade gun, can be seen on the ground.

Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, serving two stints in the job from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020. Yet he has remained a powerful political force in Japan during retirement. He was making an election campaign speech on Friday ahead of Sunday’s election for the parliament’s upper house.

All major political parties said they would also pause campaigning, and cabinet officials were ordered to return to Tokyo.

“I can’t believe that something like this could happen in the 21st century,” former Tokyo Olympics minister Yoshitaka Sakurada on his way into Liberal Democratic Party headquarters. “There’s still Russia, that was beyond expectations as well, but I can’t believe something like this could happen in Japan.”

Abe resigned one year after being first elected in 2006 when a chronic health issue reappeared. He has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and has said the condition was controlled with treatment.

After recovering, he was elected again in 2012 and led the country until 2020, when he stepped down a second time due to worsening health.

Rahm Emanuel, the new U.S. ambassador to Japan, said he was “saddened and shocked” by reports of the shooting.

“Abe-san has been an outstanding leader of Japan and unwavering ally of the U.S. The U.S. Government and American people are praying for the well-being of Abe-san, his family, & people of Japan,” he wrote on Twitter.

Other world leaders echoed their shock, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who called the attack “despicable.”

When he left office the second time, Abe told reporters it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his goals unfinished. He spoke of his failure to resolve the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia and a revision of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution.

That last goal was a big reason he was such a divisive figure.

His ultra-nationalism riled the Koreas and China, and his push to normalize Japan’s defense posture angered many Japanese. Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of formally rewriting the U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution because of poor public support.

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigns due to worsening health

Supporters of Abe said that his legacy was a stronger U.S.-Japan relationship that was meant to bolster Japan’s defense capability. But Abe made enemies too by forcing his defense goals — including more spending — and other contentious issues through parliament, despite strong public opposition.

Abe is best known for his signature “Abenomics” policy featured bold monetary easing and fiscal spending.

Political violence is rare in Japan. In 2007 Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Itoh was shot and killed by a yakuza gangster. The head of the Japan Socialist Party was assassinated during a speech in 1960 by a right-wing youth with a samurai short sword.

—With files from the Associated Press and Reuters