Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and gravely injured while campaigning Friday in southern Japan, officials said.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, was giving a speech in the city of Nara when gunfire was heard around 11:30 a.m. (10:30 p.m. Thursday ET). Public broadcaster NHK, citing the local fire department, reported that Abe was in a state of “cardiopulmonary arrest.”
In brief on-camera remarks, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said Abe’s condition remained “unknown” and that one person had been apprehended in relation to the shooting.
Elections for the upper house of the Japanese Parliament are Sunday. Abe, 67, who stepped down in 2020, was campaigning for other members of the governing conservative Liberal Democratic Party but is not a candidate himself.
Gun violence is extremely rare in Japan, where handguns are banned and people must undergo extensive tests, training and background checks to obtain and keep shotguns and air rifles.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said that he was shocked and saddened by news of the shooting.
“Abe-san has been an outstanding leader of Japan and unwavering ally of the United States,” Emanuel said in a statement Friday. “The U.S. Government and American people are praying for the well-being of Abe-san, his family, and people of Japan.”
Abe hails from Japan’s political elite and as prime minister had made reviving economic growth through his “Abenomics” policies a key pillar of his time in office.
Though Abe had been praised for amplifying Japan’s profile, his party was plagued by scandals and he was accused of mishandling the country’s pandemic response.
Abe’s resignation two years ago came amid a worsening of his ulcerative colitis, a chronic bowel condition he’d battled for years. He made the announcement days after he set a record as Japan’s longest-lasting prime minister, having been in office for almost eight years. He previously served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007.
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