As Wednesday marked four years since the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the city of Nara, visitors paid their respects to him at a floral tribute stand at the site of the shooting.

The stand was set up in front of Kintetsu Railway¡¯s Yamato-Saidaiji Station, where Abe was fatally shot during a stump speech for the 2022 election for the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of parliament.

¡°I still vividly remember seeing Abe falling to the ground after the sound of the second shot,¡± Yoshio Ogita, 78, a Nara prefectural assembly member belonging to Abe¡¯s Liberal Democratic Party, said during his visit to pay a floral tribute. Ogita was the secretary-general of the LDP¡¯s prefectural chapter at the time?and was standing several meters from Abe at the time of the shooting.