Understanding the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

What you need to know

• Shinzo Abe giving a late morning speech near a train station in Nara during a campaign rally ahead of Sunday’s senatorial elections;
• He was taken to hospital at 12:20 p.m. local time. He died at 5:03 p.m. local time;
• A man in his forties was immediately disarmed and arrested;
• The suspect is said to be a 41-year-old Japanese man who once belonged to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force;
• Japanese police raid suspect’s home;
• “The suspect said he held a grudge against a certain organization and he confessed to committing the crime because he believed former Prime Minister Abe was related to him,” a police officer said;
• China says it is “shocked” by the attack on Shinzo Abe;
• “It’s a very, very sad moment,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken;
• Russia denounced “a monstrous crime” and an “act of terrorism which has and cannot have any justification”.

Who is Shinzo Abe?

• Born September 21, 1954 in Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture;
• He served as Prime Minister from September 2006 to September 2007. He returned to power in December 2012 and will hold the post until September 2020;
• He had a profound impact on political life, resisting numerous political and financial scandals around him and those close to him;
• Shinzo Abe has made a name for himself above all abroad with his economic policy dubbed “Abenomics” launched from the end of 2012;
• Its economic policy combined 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;
• In the absence of sufficient structural reforms, Abenomics has produced only partial successes;
• In the summer of 2020, having become unpopular for his management of the pandemic deemed clumsy by public opinion, he admitted that he suffered from a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, and resigned shortly after.

Japan and guns

Japan has one of the strictest gun control laws in the world, and the annual death toll from guns in the country of 125 million people is extremely low.

Obtaining a gun license is a long and complicated process, even for Japanese citizens, who must first obtain a recommendation from a shooting association and then undergo strict police checks.