By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Shinzo Abe, who led a lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to end decades of deflation in Japan, has died after being shot, the Associated Press confirmed on Friday.
Abe was shot from behind minutes after he started a campaign speech Friday in the western Japanese city of Nara. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was pronounced dead later at the hospital.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that the suspect, who was arrested at the scene, was a former naval serviceman.
Abe was Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister since World War 2. His assassination is a shocking event in a country that has been largely free of political violence since 1945.