Japan's ex-PM Abe showing no vital signs following shooting: Kyodo

TOKYO, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is showing no vital signs after being shot Friday by a gunman during a speech in the western city of Nara, Kyodo reported citing a local emergency official.

Abe, former leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), delivered the speech in campaigning for a LDP candidate for Sunday's upper house election.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida earlier said Abe is in a "serious condition" after being shot twice during the speech.

Calling the shooting "barbaric," Kishida condemned "in the strongest" terms the shooting, which has left Abe with no signs of life after being shot and collapsing to the ground during a speech he was giving in Nara.

Local police said that Abe appears to have been shot around his chest and neck, with emergency officials saying he does not appear to be displaying any vital signs.

Police arrested the suspected gunman Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a resident of the western city at the scene.

Yamagami worked for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years until 2005, Japan's public broadcaster NHK quoted defense sources as saying.

He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and local police retrieved what appeared to be a handmade gun from the vicinity of where the former prime minister was shot, according to government reports.

According to NHK, the assailant tried to kill Abe because he was "dissatisfied" with the former prime minister.

Abe was seen bleeding on the floor after he was shot from behind at 11:30 a.m. local time by a man with a gun, local police and firefighters said.

While speaking in front of Kintetsu Railway's Yamato-Saidaiji Station, ahead of Sunday's upper house election, Abe fell to the ground after the second shot rang out, according to the police.

Abe, 67, was rushed by medevac to Nara Medical University Hospital although showed no vital signs, according to local police and emergency services.

Japan's top government spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, confirmed earlier that Abe had been shot and that his condition remained unknown.

Matsuno told reporters that any brutal act should never be tolerated, adding, "We strongly condemn this."

Kishida will return to his office in Tokyo from Yamagata Prefecture where he was campaigning and all Cabinet members have been asked to gather in Tokyo, Matsuno said, to discuss the response to the shooting.

Abe who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020, stepped down from his post due to a chronic intestinal disease.

On Aug. 24, 2020, Abe became Japan's longest-serving prime minister by number of consecutive days in office.