As Shinzo Abe Loses Fight for Life After Attack, 10 Assassinations That Shook the World | News18 Recap

Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot by an assailant while delivering a stump speech near a train station in Nara, has died, public broadcaster NHK said on Friday.

It was the first assassination of a sitting or former Japanese premier since the days of prewar militarism in the 1930s.

Speaking before Abe’s death was announced, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the shooting in the “strongest terms" while Japanese people and world leaders expressed shock at the violence in a country in which political violence is rare and guns are tightly controlled.

Abe, 67, was shot at a campaign event on Friday, a government spokesman said, as local media reported earlier in the day that the nation’s longest-serving premier was showing no vital signs. “Former prime minister Abe was shot at around 11:30 am," in the country’s western region of Nara, chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters. “One man, believed to be the shooter, has been taken into custody."