TOKYO: A security guard stopped monitoring an area behind former Japanese Prime Minister ABE Shinzo about five minutes before he was shot during an election campaign speech last month, according to a National Police Agency report released Thursday.

The report on the details of the deadly shooting of the former prime minister from behind in the western Japan prefecture of Nara July 8 showed that the prefecture’s police department was first informed of Abe’s planned speech in the prefecture around 12:50 p.m. on July 7 by an official of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Nara prefectural chapter.

The police department started preparing its security plan for Abe after receiving information around 7 p.m. on July 7 that Abe would give the speech in an area surrounded by guardrails in front of Kintetsu Railway Co.’s Yamato-Saidaiji Station in the city of Nara, the prefecture’s capital.

The security plan was formalized with approval by the chief of the prefectural police department around 9 a.m. July 8.

The report said that Abe entered the space surrounded by the guardrails after arriving at the site around 11:18 a.m. July 8 and that Tetsuya Yamagami, the 41-year-old shooter, was standing on a sidewalk behind the former prime minister at the time while applauding him.

Abe took the podium around 11:28 a.m. About two minutes before, or around 11:26 a.m., the security guard who was watching the area behind Abe entered the space at the instruction of another guard and started to pay attention to a different direction, leaving no one monitoring the area behind Abe.

Around 11:30:00 a.m., Yamagami left the sidewalk and walked away from Abe. Around 11:30:57 a.m., however, he walked toward Abe while fumbling about in his shoulder bag with the right hand.

Around 11:31:02 a.m., the suspect started crossing a prefectural road behind Abe while taking out a firearm from the bag.

Yamagami pointed the weapon at Abe around 11:31:05 a.m. and fired the first shot at a point some 7 meters from the former prime minister around 11:31:06 a.m. Some 2.7 seconds later, Yamagami fired the second shot at a distance of about 5.3 meters from Abe.

The first shot missed Abe. Before the second shot, two of the four security guards in the area surrounded by the guardrails tried to stand in between Yamagami and Abe, and the other two moved to capture the shooter, but in vain. Yamagami was caught after the second shot, which hit Abe.

Abe was given first aid at the site after being shot. He was then transported to a hospital in the prefecture by helicopter and received treatment there, but died shortly after 5 p.m. July 8.

JIJI Press