Live Updates: Shinzo Abe Is Hospitalized in Critical Condition After Being Shot
Shinzo Abe #ShinzoAbe
TOKYO — Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan, was in critical condition after being shot on Friday morning while giving a speech in western Japan, according to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Footage on social media showed Mr. Abe, 67, collapsed and bleeding on the ground in the city of Nara near Kyoto. The Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency said that Mr. Abe had sustained a gunshot wound to his right neck and left chest.
The police said they had arrested a suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, on a charge of attempted murder. The suspect had used “gunlike equipment,” which was retrieved at the scene, a police spokesman said.
Images shared on social media showed a man being tackled after the shooting near Yamatosaidaiji Station. The man was a Nara resident, according to NHK, the public broadcaster. A detailed motive for the shooting was not immediately made public.
Mr. Kishida, who had been on the campaign trail in Yamagata Prefecture and returned to Tokyo after the shooting, said at a news briefing that the attack had been a “heinous act,” adding, “It is barbaric and malicious, and it cannot be tolerated.”
He added: “Currently, doctors are doing everything they can. At this moment, I am hoping and praying that former P.M. Abe will survive this.”
Seigo Yasuhara, an official in the command center at the Nara Fire Department, said that after the shooting Mr. Abe had been under cardiopulmonary arrest and that he had been taken by an ambulance — unconscious and showing no vital signs — to a medical evacuation helicopter. He was then transported to Nara Medical University Hospital, the Nara Fire Department said.
Hirokazu Matsuno, chief cabinet secretary to Prime Minister Kishida, said that a crisis management center had been set up in the prime minister’s office.
Mr. Abe was the country’s longest-serving prime minister and served two terms, from 2006 to 2007 and 2012 to 2020. He resigned in 2020 because of ill health.
The former prime minister was in Nara campaigning ahead of elections for the Upper House of Parliament scheduled for Sunday. Mr. Abe was giving a campaign speech on behalf of Kei Sato, 43, a current member of the Upper House running for re-election in Nara. He had been speaking for less than a minute when two loud explosive sounds were heard behind him around 11:30 a.m.
Yoshio Ogita, 74, secretary general of Nara Prefecture’s Liberal Democratic chapter, was standing next to Mr. Abe. He said he heard two loud sounds and saw a plume of white smoke rising to the sky.
Mr. Abe toppled from a small 20-inch stand, where he had been perched so that he could rise above the crowd.
“I didn’t know what had happened,” Mr. Ogita said in a phone interview on Friday afternoon. “I saw him collapse.”
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July 8, 2022, 3:23 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 3:23 a.m. ET
Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s defense minister and the brother of Shinzo Abe, said of the shooting on Friday: “This is a profanity against democracy. Especially suppression of free speech should not be allowed in the midst of the upper house election. We pray for his definite recovery.”
July 8, 2022, 3:16 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 3:16 a.m. ET
The office of President Yoon Suk-yeol in South Korea said that it was closely following the situation in Japan but that it did not want to comment until there were further updates on Abe’s condition from the Japanese government.
July 8, 2022, 3:14 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 3:14 a.m. ET
Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, tweeted that she was “deeply shocked” to hear about Mr. Abe. “My thoughts are with his wife and the people of Japan,” she wrote. “Events like this shake us all to the core.”
July 8, 2022, 3:01 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 3:01 a.m. ET
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, addressed Mr. Abe directly in a tweet, asking him to “stay strong.” “Our thoughts and prayers are with your family and the people of Japan,” she wrote.
July 8, 2022, 2:59 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:59 a.m. ET Shinzo Abe in 2007, during his first, brief term as prime minister, when he espoused a hawkish, unapologetic stance for Japan.Credit…AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara
Shinzo Abe is a third-generation nationalist leader who, in eight years at the country’s helm starting in 2012, sought to revive Japan’s stagnant economy and restore some of the country’s militarism and pride.
During his two terms the 67-year-old conservative prime minister faced steep opposition for his push for a more muscular military and his bid to revise a pacifist clause in the country’s Constitution, which had been imposed by the United States after World War II. He stepped down in 2020, after a resurgence of a chronic illness, ulcerative colitis.
The grandson of a prime minister who was accused of but never tried for war crimes, Mr. Abe was first elected to lead the country in 2006 while espousing a hawkish, unapologetic stance for Japan. He lasted barely a year.
In 2012, he returned to the job with a more pragmatic approach, focusing early in his tenure on efforts to lift Japan out of its decades-long economic malaise. The optimism brought by “Abenomics,” as those efforts to overhaul Japan’s economy were known, won him high approval ratings and international prominence in those first years.
He also continued to pursue his ambitions to build up Japan’s military. In 2015, huge public protests broke out and opposition politicians took Mr. Abe to task when he forged ahead with legislation authorizing the country’s troops to go on overseas combat missions to fight alongside allies. The military move went against decades of reserving force only for self-defense.
Mr. Abe ultimately failed to achieve his long-held dream to revise a clause in the Constitution renouncing war. The Constitution was also strongly opposed by his maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who was accused of war crimes by the Americans, released without trial and later went on to serve as prime minister from 1957 to 1960.
Japan’s first prime minister to be born after the war, Mr. Abe also riled neighboring Asian countries by resisting calls for Japan to apologize for its World War II atrocities. In a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the war’s end, he said the country’s future generations should not be “predestined to apologize.”
Mr. Abe was first elected to Parliament in 1993, to the seat vacated by the death of his father, a one-time foreign minister and influential leader in the Liberal Democratic Party. He was appointed the party’s deputy chief secretary in 2000 and traveled to North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, with then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to negotiate the release of Japanese citizens abducted by the North.
As prime minister, he led his party to two more victories in national elections but was marred by influence-peddling scandals and faced criticism for the lack of progress on his stated aims of improving quality for women.
In his final months as prime minister, Mr. Abe saw his popularity plunge and his government face criticism for what many considered its inadequate early response to contain the coronavirus pandemic. He set the record as the country’s longest-serving prime minister just four days before he resigned.
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July 8, 2022, 2:47 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:47 a.m. ET
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain tweeted that he was “utterly appalled and saddened to hear about the despicable attack on Shinzo Abe. My thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”
July 8, 2022, 2:46 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:46 a.m. ET
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said on Twitter that he was “deeply distressed” by the attack on Mr. Abe, whom he described as his “dear friend.” “Our thoughts and prayers are with him, his family, and the people of Japan,” he said.
July 8, 2022, 2:36 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:36 a.m. ET
The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the incident involving the reported shooting of the former Japanese prime minister and offered its support. “The DFA prays for the early recovery of PM Abe,” the department said.
July 8, 2022, 2:33 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:33 a.m. ET Footage shared on social media showed the scene after Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan, collapsed and was left unconscious after he was shot while giving a speech in western Japan.CreditCredit…Kyodo News, via Associated Press
Videos shared on social media showed the scene moments after Shinzo Abe was shot, at a three-way junction in the city of Nara.
A number of people, many of them in orange campaign shirts, some kneeling, were crowded together near a red box, on which Mr. Abe apparently had been standing when we was shot while giving a campaign speech. A crying woman was escorted away. Mr. Abe could not be clearly seen.
“I can’t believe it,” a bystander said. “Who shot him?” the person asked. Another person, speaking into a megaphone, asked for someone with medical training.
In bird’s-eye-view footage, a small group of people could be seen several yards away, appearing to carry someone. A larger crowd of bystanders watched from a nearby sidewalk.
Mr. Abe was campaigning for a candidate in elections to the Upper House of Japan’s Parliament, scheduled for Sunday. Officials said after the shooting that all campaigns had been suspended.
Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed reporting.
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July 8, 2022, 2:32 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:32 a.m. ET
In 1960 an opposition socialist leader was stabbed to death during a televised political rally in Tokyo. Inejiro Asanuma was stabbed twice in the chest by a 17-year-old university student who was a member of an ultranationalist group. Asanuma had opposed Japan’s security pact with the U.S. and tried to foster closer ties with the communist world. The student hanged himself in his cell while awaiting trial.
July 8, 2022, 2:27 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:27 a.m. ET
South Korea’s foreign minister, Park Jin, offered words of consolation to the Japanese foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, at the Group of 20 meeting in Bali. Mr. Park called the shooting of Mr. Abe “very shocking news,” and hoped for his full recovery, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
July 8, 2022, 2:20 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:20 a.m. ET
Police arrested Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a resident of Nara city, on a charge of attempted murder at 11:32 am Friday morning. A police spokesman said the suspect was attempting to kill the former prime minster, Shinzo Abe, by shooting “gun-like equipment.”
July 8, 2022, 2:17 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:17 a.m. ET
In 2021, there were only 10 reported shootings in Japan which contributed to death, injury or property damage, according to statistics from the country’s National Police Agency. Of those gun-related incidents, only one person was killed and four were injured.
July 8, 2022, 2:12 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:12 a.m. ET CreditCredit…Kyodo News, via Associated Press
It was the most prosaic of political scenes: a major party broker speaking on behalf of a loyal fellow politician two days before a parliamentary election.
Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister, was stumping behind a traffic barrier on a street near a train station in Nara, the ancient capital of Japan, on behalf of Kei Sato, a fellow member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Shaking his fist and shouting into a microphone, Mr. Abe praised the 43-year-old Upper House incumbent as a hope for the future of Japanese politics.
Mr. Abe had been speaking for less than a minute when two loud sounds, like gunshots, rang out behind him.
Yoshio Ogita, 74, secretary general of the local chapter of the L.D.P., was standing next to Mr. Abe. He heard two loud sounds and saw a plume of white smoke rising to the sky. “I didn’t know what had happened,” he said in a phone interview. “I saw him collapse.”
Mr. Abe toppled from a small 20-inch riser, on which he had been standing to rise above the crowd. A reporter for NHK, the public broadcaster, who covered the speech said Mr. Abe crumpled to the ground after the second shot, clutching his chest.
Bystanders rushed to Mr. Abe while three men in suits, believed to be part of the former prime minister’s security detail, pinned down a man in a grey T-shirt and khaki pants. The man had tossed aside what appeared in video and photos to be a crude gun.
The man, Tetsuya Yamagami, was arrested, and police said they retrieved a gun from the scene. Ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the scene, and as emergency workers rushed to administer CPR, Mr. Abe was covered with a large blue tarp.
Emergency workers loaded him onto a stretcher, and under cover of the tarp, loaded him onto a medical evacuation helicopter that took him to Nara Medical University Hospital.
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July 8, 2022, 2:12 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:12 a.m. ET
The Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency has confirmed that former Prime Minister Abe sustained a gunshot wound to his right neck and left chest.
July 8, 2022, 2:06 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:06 a.m. ET
Kishida said all cabinet ministers will return to Tokyo from campaigning.
July 8, 2022, 2:03 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 2:03 a.m. ET
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who appeared emotional, called the shooting a “heinous act.” He said that while the motives aren’t known,“Elections are being held. This is the very foundation of democracy and such an incident took place. It is barbaric and malicious and it cannot be tolerated. We will do everything we can, and I would like to use the most extreme words available to condemn this act.”
Credit…Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press
July 8, 2022, 1:58 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 1:58 a.m. ET
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that Abe was in critical condition. “Currently doctors are doing everything they can,” he told reporters at the prime minister’s residence. “At this moment, I am hoping and praying that former PM Abe will survive this.”
July 8, 2022, 1:33 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 1:33 a.m. ET
All election campaigns have been temporarily suspended after the shooting, Japanese officials said.
July 8, 2022, 1:32 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 1:32 a.m. ET
A helicopter has just landed on the roof of the prime minister’s residence and Mr. Kishida has emerged surrounded by security detail. He just returned to Tokyo from Yamagata, where he was campaigning.
July 8, 2022, 1:18 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 1:18 a.m. ET
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who was in Bali for a Group of 20 meeting, told reporters on Friday that he was “deeply saddened and deeply concerned” by the news about Shinzo Abe. “Our thoughts, our prayers are with him, with his family, with the people of Japan.”
Credit…Pool photo by Stefani Reynolds 
July 8, 2022, 1:14 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 1:14 a.m. ET Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Donald J. Trump with their spouses at Mar-a-Lago in 2017.Credit…Al Drago/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — In the chaotic month after Donald J. Trump was elected in 2016, one world leader figured out how to get to him — and arrived at Trump Tower with a gold-plated golf club to get on the right side of America’s new leader.
It was Shinzo Abe, already four years into what became the longest prime ministership in postwar Japanese history. He knew that Mr. Trump had a fixation on the trade deficit with Japan and that he had threatened, in a New York Times interview, to pull back American troops and perhaps encourage Japan to build its own nuclear weapons.
But in the end, Mr. Abe built one of the most solid relationships with the most mercurial of American presidents of anyone on the global stage. He showed up at Mar-a-Lago to play golf with Mr. Trump. He bolstered Japan’s contributions to pay for American troops in the country. He sent teams to the United States to figure out how to massage Mr. Trump’s ego. That led to the decision by Mr. Abe to nominate Mr. Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for his negotiations with North Korea — even though the negotiations failed.
Mr. Abe came by these instincts naturally: One of his grandfathers, Nobusuke Kishi, had served as prime minister in the late 1950s, when Japan relied even more heavily on the United States government. (Mr. Kishi had been imprisoned by the United States for a number of years after World War II, charged with being a war criminal, but was released at a time the United States was looking for pro-American politicians.) Mr. Abe’s father, Shintaro Abe, had served as Japanese foreign minister and minister of international trade and industry.
So Mr. Abe’s skills at managing Americans were well honed. But Mr. Trump was a challenge, constantly reminding him that America’s economy was larger than Japan’s and constantly saying that the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance was dependent on narrowing trade deficits. But Mr. Abe’s calculation was to keep Mr. Trump close, let him win at golf and encourage him when he called Japan a “crucial ally.”
And Mr. Abe bought a lot of military hardware from the United States. At a news conference in 2017 with Mr. Trump, a reporter asked the Japanese leader why his country did not shoot down a North Korean missile that was tested around its waters.
“If I could just take a piece of the prime minister’s answer,” Mr. Trump said, “He will shoot them out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of additional military equipment from the United States.” Mr. Abe said little.
Mr. Abe stepped down in 2020, before President Biden was elected, but the two men had met when Mr. Biden served as vice president. Officials at the White House and the National Security Council did not immediately respond to questions about the news out of Japan just before midnight in Washington.
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting. Mr. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent, served as The Times’s Tokyo correspondent and Tokyo bureau chief for six years, from 1988 to 1994.
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July 8, 2022, 12:57 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:57 a.m. ET
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said on Facebook that Shinzo Abe was not only a good friend of hers, but also the staunchest ally who has been supporting Taiwan for years and sparing no effort in promoting the relations between Taiwan and Japan. Ms. Tsai said she hoped to hear good news from “our good friend.”
July 8, 2022, 12:56 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:56 a.m. ET
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said on Twitter that “our thoughts are with his family and the people of Japan at this time.”
July 8, 2022, 12:32 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:32 a.m. ET
Israel’s ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, said he was shocked by the news. “Being one of the most prominent leaders of Japan, Abe san was amongst the architects of modern relations between Israel and Japan,” he said on Twitter. “We are all praying for his health.”
July 8, 2022, 12:31 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:31 a.m. ET Shinzo Abe, holding a microphone, campaigning in late June in Tokyo. Elections for the Upper House of Parliament are Sunday.Credit…Issei Kato/Reuters
TOKYO — Before he was wounded on Friday, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, was speaking at a campaign event in Nara, urging voters to support his party in parliamentary elections on Sunday.
It was one of thousands of similar speeches going on all around the country as voters prepared to go to the polls in what had seemed likely to be an unexceptional campaign season.
Following the shooting, all election campaigns have been temporarily suspended, Japanese lawmakers said.
Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party has had a virtual lock on the country’s politics since the end of World War II, and the big question hanging over the vote this Sunday was not whether it would be returned to power, but by what margin.
Mr. Abe resigned as prime minister in 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. But he has remained one of the country’s most effective power brokers through his influence on members of his party. He had hoped that an overwhelming victory by the L.D.P. would enable him to make progress on one of his most dearly held political aspirations: revising Japan’s pacifist Constitution to allow the country to have a standing military.
Despite its near monopoly on political power, the L.D.P. has been generally unpopular for years. In a recent poll by Kyodo News, 28 percent of voters supported it. But it has managed to hold on to power because no other political party has effectively organized against it.
Speeches like Mr. Abe’s are typical in the 20 days before an election, the only period when campaigning is allowed. It’s common for there to be a police presence around famous politicians like Mr. Abe, but disruptions and violence of any type are extremely rare.
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July 8, 2022, 12:24 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:24 a.m. ET
Shehzad Poonawalla, a spokesman for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said on Twitter that he was distressed to hear the news about Mr. Abe. “Shinzo Abe has been a true friend of India and my prayers are with his family, friends, supporters and people of Japan,” he said.
July 8, 2022, 12:14 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:14 a.m. ET
Seigo Yasuhara, an official in the command center at the Nara Fire Department, said that Mr. Abe is under cardiopulmonary arrest.
July 8, 2022, 12:10 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:10 a.m. ET
The United States ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, sent his prayers to Mr. Abe and the people of Japan. “We are all saddened and shocked,” he said on Twitter. “Abe-san has been an outstanding leader of Japan and unwavering ally of the U.S.”
Credit…Behrouz Mehri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
July 8, 2022, 12:10 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:10 a.m. ET
Tetsuya Yamagami, the suspect who is in custody, is 42 years old.
July 8, 2022, 12:09 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:09 a.m. ET
Abe was giving a campaign speech on behalf of Kei Sato a current member of the Upper House running for reelection in Nara.
July 8, 2022, 12:05 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:05 a.m. ET
Fumio Kishida, Japan’s current prime minister, was on the campaign trail in Yamagata Prefecture and is returning to Tokyo and is expected to speak with reporters.
July 8, 2022, 12:02 a.m. ET
July 8, 2022, 12:02 a.m. ET
Hirokazu Matsuno, chief cabinet secretary to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, said that there was a gunshot at 11:30 and that the police have arrested one man. Mr Abe’s condition was unknown, he said. A crisis management center has been set up in the prime minister’s office, and Mr. Kishida is returning from the campaign trail to Tokyo.
July 7, 2022, 11:54 p.m. ET
July 7, 2022, 11:54 p.m. ET
Seigo Yasuhara, an official in the command center at the Nara Fire Department, said that he could not confirm that Shinzo Abe had been shot with a gun but that he had been carried by ambulance to a helicopter and was then taken to a regional medical center. He was unconscious and not showing any vital signs.
July 7, 2022, 11:47 p.m. ET
July 7, 2022, 11:47 p.m. ET
NHK is reporting that police said a man in his 40s and a Nara resident, has been taken into custody as a suspect.
July 7, 2022, 11:43 p.m. ET
July 7, 2022, 11:43 p.m. ET
Shinzo Abe was taken to Nara Medical University Hospital, according to the Nara Fire Department.
July 7, 2022, 11:34 p.m. ET
July 7, 2022, 11:34 p.m. ET Live TV coverage of Shinzo Abe, then prime minister, announcing his resignation in Tokyo in 2020.Credit…Kimimasa Mayama/EPA, via Shutterstock
When Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, announced in late 2020 that he would resign, he ended a term in office in which he pursued — with mixed results — a conservative agenda of restoring the country’s economy, military and national pride.
Mr. Abe, then 65, the grandson of a prime minister, was initially elected to Parliament in 1993 after the death of his father, a former foreign minister. He first served as prime minister beginning in 2006, but stepped down after a scandal-plagued year in office.
He became the country’s leader again in 2012, promising to fix its beleaguered economy and achieve his nationalist dream of amending Japan’s pacifist Constitution to allow for a full-fledged military.
After he had served nearly eight years in office, he said it was ailing health — a relapse of a bowel disease that had contributed to his previous exit in 2007 — that led him to resign.
The once-popular leader, however, had seen a decline in his standing with the Japanese people, and he was criticized for his handling of the country’s coronavirus epidemic and his support for an arrested member of his party.
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