Shinzo Abe's death raises security questions as Japan mourns
TOKYO -- A top police official on Saturday acknowledged possible security lapses that allowed an assassin to fire his gun into former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe while he was addressing a campaign rally, raising questions how could the attacker get so close behind him.
Nara prefectural police chief Tomoaki Onizuka said Abe's assassination was his"greatest regret" in a 27-year career.Abe was shot from behind minutes after he started his speech Friday in Nara in western Japan. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital.
A former Kyoto prefectural police investigator, Fumikazu Higuchi, said the footage suggested security was sparse at the event and insufficient for a former prime minister. Fukuda said that election campaigns provide a chance for voters and politicians to interact because"political terrorism" was extremely rare in postwar Japan. But Abe's assassination could prompt stricter security at crowded events like campaigns, sports games and others.
As Abe turned to see where the noise came from, a second shot went off. That bullet apparently hit Abe's left arm, missing a bulletproof briefcase raised by a security guard who stood behind him. 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, eight of then gang-related.
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