Assassination of Shinzō Abe

Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan and the country's longest-serving leader, was shot dead while giving a campaign speech in front of a railway station in Nara, shortly before a national election. The attacker, Tetsuya Yamagami, was arrested at the scene with a homemade gun. He told police that he resented the Unification Church, whose donations had ruined his family, and that he believed Abe had links with it. Political violence of this kind is very rare in Japan, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. The killing shocked the country and the world. It also led to scrutiny of connections between the Church and conservative politicians in Japan.

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