The former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe had been taken to hospital after being shot from behind while delivering a campaign speech, according to local media.
Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reports Abe collapsed after shots were heard.
NHK and Kyodo news agency said Abe appeared to be in a state of cardiac arrest.
Abe, the longest-serving Prime Minister was pronounced dead around five and a half hours after the shooting in the city of Nara. Police arrested a 41-year-old man and said the weapon was a homemade gun.
“I am simply speechless over the news of Abe’s death,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Abe’s protege, told reporters.
The former prime minister was delivering in an address in the western city of Nara at the time of the incident.
An NHK reporter said they heard two consecutive bangs which sounded like gunfire. The attack shocked Japan, where guns are tightly controlled and political violence almost unthinkable.
