TOKYO — One moment, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s most influential former prime minister, was looking for a young politician from his party near a train station in Japan’s ancient capital, Nara. The next moment, Mr. Abe had collapsed and was bleeding in the street, shot twice in the neck, doctors said, by a gunman who police later admitted had come to kill him.
Less than six hours later, Mr Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister in history, died at the age of 67.
The assassination on Friday morning – in the midst of a campaign for a parliamentary election scheduled for Sunday and largely ignored by the public – sent shockwaves across Japan, with some of the strictest gun laws in the world and a general public not used to such violent crime.
The shooting comes at a pivotal time for Japan as it seeks to secure a stronger leadership position in the region, despite mounting threats from its neighbors China and North Korea. And with images of extreme violence from Ukraine and the United States playing out on screens in Japan, the public is alarmed by the possibility that their own country may not be as safe as they thought.
Shortly after the shooting, police arrested Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, at the scene. He has been charged with murder. Police officials said he used a homemade gun and confessed to planning to kill Mr. Abe because he believed the former prime minister had some association with a group against which Mr. Yamagumi “held a grudge”.
“I am in complete shock,” said Ayane Kubota, 37, on his way home from work in Tokyo and scrolling through Twitter to catch up on the Friday night news. “This is so un-Japanese. You never hear about gun violence here. You hear about it all the time on TV in the United States, but not here.”
mr. Abe, a transformative figure in the Japanese political landscape, leaves a remarkable legacy. At home, he tried to turn Japan into what he called a “normal” country, able to defend itself and even go into battle after more than 70 years of pacifism imposed by a constitution written by the post-war American occupiers.
But he could also be polarizing because of his right-wing views on constitutional reform, women’s right to keep their names after marriage, and historical revisionism about Japan’s wartime atrocities. On social media, he was attacked by some commentators even as he lay dying in the hospital.
In a news conference Friday night, police officials from Nara Prefectural Office said that Mr. Yamagumi had made the double-barreled rifle, which is about 16 inches long and 7 inches wide, and that police found several similar weapons in his apartment near the site.
Condolences poured in from around the world for Mr. Abe, who had forged relationships with world leaders during his nearly eight-year tenure. As a jet-set diplomat, he worked closely with allies, but also reached out to countries like Russia with which Japan had precarious relations. When the United States hesitated in its commitment to Asia, Mr. Abe cast off Japan as the regional leader upholding free trade and the rule of law against an increasingly aggressive China.