Ex-Japan PM Abe Remembered 4 Years after Shooting

Nara, July 8 (Jiji Press)--As Wednesday marked four years since the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the western Japan city of Nara, about 1,000 visitors paid their respects to him at a floral tribute stand at the shooting site.

The stand was set up in front of Kintetsu Railway Co.'s Yamato-Saidaiji Station, where Abe was fatally shot during a stump speech for the 2022 election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament.

"I still vividly remember seeing Abe falling to the ground after the sound of the second shot," Yoshio Ogita, 78, a Nara prefectural assembly member belonging to Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, said during his visit to pay a floral tribute. Ogita was the secretary-general of the LDP's prefectural chapter and was standing several meters from Abe at the time of the shooting.

"It's the mission of those left behind to pass on the memory of the incident," he said.

"Abe shook hands with me at a speech gathering," Rumi Yamada, 60, a nursery teacher in Nara, said. "I am still deeply saddened by his death, and my sorrow will never go away."

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]