TOKYO: The suspected killer of Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe admitted targeting him and said he held a grudge against an organisation he believed the politician was connected to, police said Friday.
"The suspect stated that he held a grudge against a particular organisation and that he committed the crime because he believed former prime minister Abe had a connection to it," a senior police officer in Japan's Nara region told reporters, declining to give further details.
Japanese police on Friday named the suspected killer of former prime minister Shinzo Abe as unemployed 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, who told officers he had used a handmade gun.
The murder of the 67-year-old, who had been Japan's longest-serving leader, stunned the nation and prompted an international outpouring of grief and condemnation.
Abe was shot shortly before noon while campaigning in the western region of Nara ahead of weekend upper house elections.
He had suffered two gunshot wounds to the neck and died of massive blood loss.
He was flown by helicopter to the Nara Medical University hospital where he was pronounced dead several hours later.
It was all the more shocking given Japan's strict gun laws and low rates of violent crime, with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida describing it as a "barbaric act" that was "absolutely unforgivable."
A visibly emotional Kishida told reporters after Abe's death was confirmed that he was "lost for words"