Former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe has been confirmed dead in the hospital where was received treatment after being shot during an election campaign speech in Nara city of Japan, public broadcaster NHK said.
Abe was airlifted to a hospital but local authorities previously said the 67-year-old Japanese leader was showing no vital signs.
Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the attack.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Abe was in “severe condition” and hoped he will survive. “I’m praying for former prime minister Abe’s survival from the bottom of my heart,” Kishida said at the prime minister’s office.
Doctors are “fighting to save” former Japanese leader Abe, Kishida at a news conference on Friday. “This is not a forgivable act,” he said.
Kishida and his Cabinet ministers hastily returned to Tokyo from other campaign events around the country after the shooting.
The shooting incident has stunned the world as Japan is considered one of the world’s safest countries with some of the strictest gun control laws.