Shinzo Abe: Japan ex-PM assassinated at campaign event

Shinzo Abe, the Country’s longest serving premier, was stumping behind a traffic barrier on a street near a train station in Nara, the ancient capital of Japan, in support of of Kei Sato, a fellow member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Shaking his fist and shouting into a microphone, Mr. Abe, in speech, 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.

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 suspect, 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.

Suspect.