World - Asia
Updated: September 27, 2022

Japan Honours Assassinated Ex-PM Shinzo Abe

By Quadri Adejumo
September 27, 2022
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Japan on Tuesday held a rare and controversial state funeral for assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Defence soldiers in white uniforms took Abe’s ashes and placed them on a pedestal filled with white and yellow chrysanthemum flowers and decorations.

Government, parliamentary and judicial representatives, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, also made condolence speeches.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, among dozens of foreign dignitaries and 4.300 attendees, sat in the third row, next to Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Also, hours before the ceremony, hundreds of people carrying bouquets of flowers queued at public flower-laying stands at nearby Kudanzaka park.

Abe was cremated in July after a private funeral at a Tokyo temple days after he was assassinated while giving a campaign speech on a street in Nara, a city in western Japan.