Japanese pay farewell to former PM Shinzo Abe
Many people in Japan are saying their goodbyes to former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. He was shot dead during a campaign event last Friday just days before the Upper House election. A funeral was held in Tokyo Tuesday.
A funeral hearse carried the body of slain former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe made its way through Tokyo on Tuesday, in a final farewell to the country's longest-serving premier, who was gunned down at a campaign rally last week.
Crowds packed pavements lined with a heavy police presence as the hearse carrying Abe departed from a central Tokyo temple in early afternoon. People shouted, clapped and waved as it passed, with some holding flowers.
The funeral motorcade passed through the capital's political heart of Nagatacho and landmarks such as the Prime Minister's office and the parliament building Abe first entered as a young lawmaker in 1993 after the death of his politician father, and the office from which he led the nation in two stints as prime minister, the longer from 2012 to 2020.
Hundreds filed into the temple on Monday evening and Tuesday morning to pay their respects to Abe, who died aged 67. His killing on Friday by an unemployed man wielding a homemade gun stunned a nation where both gun crime and political violence are extremely rare.
