Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died at age 67 after being shot during a speech today in Nara, Japan, doctors who were treating him have confirmed.
The shocking act of violence has rattled the country with one of the world’s lowest rates of gun violence. Abe died from excessive bleeding and was pronounced dead at 5:03 p.m. local time, doctors at the Nara Medical University hospital said during a press conference.
The doctors said the bullet that killed the former Japanese leader was “deep enough to reach his heart” and a team of 20 medical professionals was unable to stop the bleeding.
Police have arrested a Nara resident in his 40s in relation to the shooting, public broadcaster NHK reported. Messages from world leaders, past and present, have flooded in, expressing condemnation of the shooting. Abe was the longest-serving Japanese Prime Minister in history.
CNN/Daily Mail UK