Japanese officials will soon begin discussing arrangements for the funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated Friday in a shootout in broad daylight, sending a nation unaccustomed to armed violence into a state of shock and anger.
On Saturday morning after the deadly shooting on a street in downtown Nara, Japan, a car believed to be carrying the body of the former world leader left Nara Medical University Hospital, where Abe had received treatment. , according to the Japanese public channel NHK.
Her widow, Akie Abe, travels with her husband’s body back to Tokyo, where the family resides, before talking about funeral arrangements, Abe’s office told CNN.
Following the murder, mourners gathered to place flowers and kneel at a makeshift monument outside Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara, near where Abe was killed.
That a former prime minister could be shot dead at close range while delivering a speech in broad daylight in a country with one of the lowest firearm crime rates in the world has resonated in Japan and the world. Presidents, prime ministers and other international leaders sent tributes expressing outrage and sadness over the assassination.
Abe, 67, was pronounced dead Friday at 5:03 p.m., local time, just over five hours after he was shot while delivering a campaign speech in front of a small crowd on the street.
At the time of the shooting, Abe was speaking in support of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government candidates ahead of Sunday’s upper house elections, which are still scheduled for the celebration. Although he resigned as Prime Minister of Japan in 2020 for health reasons, Abe continued to be an influential figure in the country’s political landscape and continued to campaign for the LDP.
Japan’s “JFK Moment”: Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister who defined the country’s politics for a generation.
He will be remembered for raising defense spending, driving the most dramatic change in Japanese military policy in 70 years and his grand experiment designed to pull Japan’s economy out after decades of stagnation, known as “Abenomics”.
Tomohiko Taniguchi, a former special adviser to Abe, said the former prime minister was “one of Japan’s most transformative leaders” and described his assassination as the equivalent of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.
“I think it will be the equivalent of the day of JFK’s murder … It has been a day of sadness, pain, disbelief and for me, a tremendous rage. People have a hard time digesting reality,” Taniguchi said. . Friday.
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