The vehicle, left, carrying the body of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe leaves Zojoji temple after his funeral in Tokyo. Photo / AP
The vehicle, left, carrying the body of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe leaves Zojoji temple after his funeral in Tokyo. Photo / AP
Japanese bid their final goodbye to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as his funeral was held at a temple days after his assassination shocked the nation.
Abe, the country's longest-serving prime minister, remained influential even after stepping down two years ago for health reasons. He was gunned down Friday during a campaign speech in the western city of Nara.
Hundreds of people, some in formal dark suits, filled footpaths outside Zojoji Temple in downtown Tokyo to farewell Abe, whose nationalistic views drove the governing party's conservative policies.
The hearse, left, carrying the body of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe leaves Zojoji temple after his funeral in Tokyo. Photo / AP
Mourners took photos and some called out "Abe san!" as a motorcade with the hearse carrying his body accompanied by his widow, Akie Abe, slowly drove by the packed crowd.
About 1000 people, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, senior governing party leaders and foreign officials, attended the funeral at the temple.
"I believe there were many things he left unfinished as a politician," public broadcaster NHK quoted Akie Abe as saying. "But he planted many seeds and I'm sure they will sprout."
Abe's long-time ally and mentor, Finance Minister Taro Aso, described him as "the most talented politician in postwar Japan who raised Japan's international profile".
Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, center, officials and employees offer prayers towards a hearse carrying the body of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo / AP
The hearse travelled through Tokyo's main political district, Nagata-cho, where Abe spent more than three decades after being elected to parliament in 1991. It then drove slowly by the governing party headquarters, where senior lawmakers in dark suits stood outside and prayed, before heading to the prime minister's office, where Abe served for nearly a decade.
Kishida and Cabinet members pressed their hands before their chests as they prayed and bowed towards the hearse heading to a crematorium.
Two days after Abe's killing, his Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner won a landslide victory in elections for the upper house, the less powerful of parliament's two chambers.
That could allow Kishida to govern uninterrupted until a scheduled election in 2025. But Abe's death also opens up a period of uncertainly for his party. Experts say a power struggle within Abe's party faction is certain and could affect Kishida's grip on power.
Kishida has stressed the importance of party unity after Abe's death.
Shinzo Abe, center, laughs with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, second from right, and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera. Photo / AP
Abe's assassination has shaken Japan, one of the world's safest nations with some of the strictest gun laws.
The suspect, Tetsyua Yamagami, was arrested on the spot Friday and is being held at a prosecutors' office for further investigation. They can detain him for up to three weeks while deciding whether to formally press charges.
Police said Yamagami cited a rumoured link between Abe and an organisation media named as the Unification Church as the motive for the killing. Media reports said Yamagami disliked the church because donations by his mother to the religious group had bankrupted his family.
The head of the Japanese branch of the South Korean-based church, known for its anti-communist stance and mass weddings, confirmed that the mother was a member. He said Abe was not, but may have spoken at groups affiliated with the church.
Akie Abe, wife of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, sitting at right, is seen in the hearse carrying Abe's body as it leaves Zojoji temple. Photo / AP
Public security chief Satoshi Ninoyu said he has instructed the National Police Agency to investigate security protocols for political and business leaders.
Abe, the son of an earlier prime minister, became Japan's youngest premier in 2006 at age 52. He left after a year in office because of health reasons but returned to power in 2012.
He vowed to revitalise the nation and lift its economy out of its deflationary doldrums with his "Abenomics" formula, which combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms.
His long-cherished goals, shared by other ultraconservatives, were to revise Japan's pacifist constitution drafted by the United States after World War II and transform Japan's Self Defence Force into a full-fledged military.
Abe, 67, left office in 2020, citing a recurrence of the ulcerative colitis he'd had since he was a teenager.
