By RYUTARO ABE/ Staff Writer
July 8, 2022 at 18:14 JST
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida talks to reporters about the shooting attack against Shinzo Abe on July 8. (Koichi Ueda)
With his voice sometimes trembling while apparently holding back tears, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the shooting attack against former leader Shinzo Abe as a “cowardly and barbaric act.”
“It is simply unforgivable,” Kishida said at a news conference at the prime minister’s office held after the attack in Nara on July 8. “I condemn it in the strongest terms possible.”
The news conference was held before Abe’s death was confirmed.
Kishida said the government “has yet to fully understand” the motive behind the attack.
“But whatever the case may be, it is a cowardly and barbaric act committed in the middle of an election, which is the basis of democracy,” he said.
Kishida said he instructed Cabinet members who were on the campaign trail for the July 10 Upper House election to return to Tokyo and formulate a central government response to the situation.
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