Japan shocked: Shinzo Abe dies

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died. According to NHK, the official announcement of Abe's death came from the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party (Jiminto), of which Abe was the leader.

Abe was hit by two bullets today, as he began a rally in Nara. The shooter was reportedly a 41-year-old, Tetsuya Yamagami, who was quickly arrested and said he had not acted for political reasons, but out of resentment towards the former prime minister. Transported to hospital, it was immediately understood that he was in desperate conditions and he was declared in “cardio-pulmonary arrest”.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died after being shot at a campaign rally, public broadcaster NHK and Jiji news agency reported. “According to a senior LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) official, former Prime Minister Abe died at a hospital in the city of Kashihara in the Nara region, where he was receiving medical treatment. He was 67 years old,” NHK said.

The former soldier arrested after fatally wounding former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with a makeshift firearm has denied that he acted with political motivations, Japanese media reported, which released information leaked from initial police interrogations of the 41-year-old attacker. Japan's Defense Ministry has since confirmed that the attacker is a former soldier who served in the Maritime Self-Defense Force from 2002 to 2005.

The man, immediately stopped by the former prime minister's security service, was arrested on charges of attempted murder. The perpetrator of the attack used a weapon of obvious home-made manufacture hidden in a bag, as emerges from the images circulating in the Japanese media.

The man, identified by the police as Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old from Naha, approached the former prime minister from behind, while he was introducing local candidates for the elections for the renewal of the upper house scheduled for Sunday, July 10. To hit the former prime minister, the man used a sort of homemade short-barreled shotgun. The attack has thrown Japan into dismay: the country is in fact known for the extreme rigidity of its laws on the control of firearms, and the victims of armed violence can be counted on the fingers of one hand every year.