Japan PM blames inadequate police security for death of former leader Shinzo Abe

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday blamed inadequate police security for the death of former leader Shinzo Abe, who was shot while giving an outdoor campaign speech.

Abe, one of Japan's most influential politicians, was assassinated last Friday in western Japan, shocking a nation known for its low crime rate. Photos and videos of the shooting show the gunman was able to come close to Abe.

A suspect was arrested on the spot and is being detained for questioning. Police and media reports say he told investigators that a rumoured link between Abe and a religious group the suspect hated was the reason he killed the former prime minister.

Abe was born into a prominent political family and became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. He was credited with instilling political and economic stability though he angered Japan’s neighbours South Korea and China — along with many Japanese — with his nationalistic rhetoric and calls to revise the country’s pacifist constitution.

In 1977, he graduated from Seikei University in Tokyo with a degree in political science, after which he moves to the U.S. to study public policy at the University of Southern California for three semesters. He was first elected as an LDP legislator representing the southwestern prefecture of Yamaguchi in 1993. he, already viewed as a conservative, became a member of and eventually led the party’s largest faction, Seiwakai, which had once been headed by his father, who died in 1991.

Image: AP