Site of Japanese ex-PM Abe's assassination turned into road with nearby flowerbed

NARA -- The place where former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot while delivering a speech here in July 2022 has been turned into a roadway, with a sidewalk flowerbed nearby, following construction which ended on March 31.

The Nara Municipal Government had been conducting roadwork on the north side of Kintetsu Railway's Yamato-Saidaiji Station before the assassination. While the city considered building a monument honoring Abe after the shooting, it decided to move forward with its original plan to build a roadway as some residents said they did not want to remember the incident. The guardrail surrounding the area where Abe was delivering his speech was removed at the end of 2022, and construction to expand a nearby sidewalk continued. A flowerbed was put in for those who wish to mourn the former prime minister.

Abe was shot from behind during a stump speech in the city of Nara on July 8, 2022. He was 67. The Nara District Public Prosecutors Office indicted 42-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami on several charges, including for the murder of the former prime minister with a homemade gun.

(Japanese original by Mizuki Hayashi, Nara Bureau)