Japanese authorities have arrested Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old man, and charged him of attempted murder, after former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated on Friday.
Government officials said that the suspect had been a Maritime Self-Defence Force officer for three years until around 2005.
Yamagami told investigators he “had grievances” with the former prime minister and had decided to kill him. The gun used in the attack was apparently hand-made. Media footage showed an object with what looked like two barrels wrapped in black tape as the likely murder weapon.
Though high-ranking assassination attempts in Japan have been rare , they are not without precedent.
In 1921, Takashi Hara, the architect of the full-fledged party Cabinet system was stabbed to death at Tokyo Station by a young railway worker. Nine years later, a gunman attacked Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi at Tokyo Station. He died of his wounds the following year.
Today in History: Exactly a century ago today, Prime Minister Takashi Hara was assassinated at Tokyo Station by a Japanese rightwinger. The site is marked at Marunouchi South. He was Japan's first commoner prime minister and the first Christian to hold the office. #TakashiHara pic.twitter.com/8gUuaRR476
— SNA Japan (@ShingetsuNews) November 3, 2021
In 1932, Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai was also killed by a group of armed naval officers, who stormed the Premiers office. The killing is known as the famous “May 15 incident.”
OTD in 1932, Japan's PM Tsuyoshi Inukai was assassinated in a coup by jr Navy officers; Inukai had tried to reign in the increasingly aggressive Japanese military as PM. The coup meant the end of civilian political control over govt decisions till after WW2. #History #Japan #WW2 pic.twitter.com/lx6Cp1IzGZ
— A Mouthful of History (@AMouthfulofHis1) May 15, 2020
There was also an attempt on the life of Abe’s grandfather, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi in 1960. Also in that year, a 17-year old fatally stabbed the head of Japan’s Socialist Party Inejiro Asanuma.
Also Read: FORMER JAPAN PM SHINZO ABE, INDIA'S FRIEND, ASSASSINATED
