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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Shinzo Abe’s body arrives in Tokyo as Japan mourns
A hearse transporting the body of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe arrives at his residence in Tokyo yesterday. Photo: AFP
/ AP, TOKYO
The body of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was returned to Tokyo yesterday after he was fatally shot during a campaign speech in western Japan a day earlier.
Abe was attacked in Nara and airlifted to a local hospital, but died of blood loss despite emergency treatment including massive blood transfusions.
Police arrested the alleged attacker, a former member of the Japanese navy, at the scene on suspicion of murder. Police confiscated a homemade gun, and several others were later found at his apartment.
The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, told investigators that he plotted the shooting because he believed rumors that Abe was connected to an organization that he resents, police said.
Japanese media reported that the man had developed hatred toward a religious group his mother was devoted to. The reports did not specify the group.
A black hearse carrying Abe’s body and accompanied by his wife arrived at his home in Tokyo’s upscale residential area of Shibuya, where many mourners waited and lowered their heads as the vehicle passed.
Abe’s assassination ahead of tomorrow’s Japanese House of Councilors election shocked the nation and raised questions over whether security for the former prime minister was adequate.
Police yesterday said autopsy results showed a bullet that entered Abe’s upper left arm damaged arteries beneath both collar bones, causing fatal massive bleeding.
Some observers who watched videos of the assassination on social media and television noted a lack of attention in the open space behind Abe as he spoke.
A former Kyoto police investigator, Fumikazu Higuchi, said the footage suggested security was sparse at the event and insufficient for a former prime minister.
“It is necessary to investigate why security allowed Yamagami to freely move and go behind Mister Abe,” Higuchi told a Nippon TV talk show.
Experts said Abe was more vulnerable standing on ground level, instead of atop a campaign vehicle, which reportedly could not be arranged because his visit to Nara was hastily planned the day before.
In videos circulating on social media, the attacker can be seen with the homemade gun hanging from his shoulder, standing only a few meters behind Abe across a busy street, and continuously glancing around.
A few minutes after Abe stood at the podium and started his speech — as a local candidate from his party and their supporters stood and waved to the crowd — the attacker can be seen firing the first shot, which issued a cloud of smoke, but the projectile apparently missed Abe.
As Abe turned to see where the noise came from, a second shot went off. That shot apparently hit Abe’s left arm, missing a bulletproof briefcase raised by a security guard who stood behind him.
Abe fell to the ground, with his left arm tucked in as if to cover his chest.
Campaign organizers shouted through loudspeakers asking for medical experts to provide first-aid to Abe, whose heart and breathing had stopped by the time he was airlifted to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
The Asahi Shimbun reported that Yamagami was a contract worker at a warehouse in Kyoto, where he was a forklift operator and known as a quiet person who did not mingle with his colleagues.
A next-door neighbor at his apartment told the newspaper that he never met Yamagami, although he recalled hearing noises resembling a saw being used several times late at night over the past month.
Japan is particularly known for its strict gun laws.
With a population of 125 million, it had only 10 gun-related criminal cases last year, resulting in one death and four injuries, police data showed.
Eight of those cases were gang-related.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
