World leaders have been reacting with shock to the killing of the former Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
US President Joe Biden has ordered US flags to be flown at half-staff over the weekend in tribute to Abe.
His Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, who himself survived an assassination attempt, announced three days of official mourning.
Abe was shot at twice while he was giving a speech on a street in the city of Nara on Friday morning.
The suspect, named as Tetsuya Yamagami, admitted shooting Abe with a homemade gun and said he had a grudge against a "specific organisation", police said.
Both allies and traditional rivals of Abe have offered their condolences.
Mr Biden said he was "stunned, outraged and deeply saddened" by Abe's death.
"Even at the moment he was attacked, he was engaged in the work of democracy," the president said.
Mr Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, said Abe "was a unifier like no other" and said he hoped the suspect would be "be dealt with swiftly and harshly".
Barack Obama recalled "the moving experience of traveling to Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor together".
Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro expressed "extreme indignation" at the killing and declared three days of official mourning in solidarity with Japan.
Mr Bolsonaro described Abe as a "brilliant leader" and "great friend of Brazil" in a tweet including a photo of the two men shaking hands at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2019.
"Let his murder be punished rigorously. We are with Japan," he tweeted.
Brazil has the largest Japanese community outside the archipelago, with about 1.9 million immigrants and descendants.
Comentarios