World
By Karina Tsui and Ellen Francis | Jul 8, 2022
The violent deaths of heads of state and government often reverberate globally. With Friday’s fatal shooting of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, we look back at other assassinations around the world during the past six decades.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
President John F. Kennedy in a motorcade just before he was shot in Dallas in 1963.
AP Photo/Jim Altgens
AP Photo/Jim Altgens
John F. Kennedy, president of the United States
Ahead of a likely run for reelection, the president and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, traveled to Texas on Nov. 22, 1963, for a two-day visit to help bring a feuding Democratic Party together.
AP Photo/Jim Altgens
As they rode in the back seat of a convertible through downtown Dallas, gunshots erupted — with two bullets hitting the president in the throat and head. Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine, was charged in the assassination, only to be murdered two days later by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub operator.
Despite a months-long investigation led by the chief justice of the United States that concluded Oswald killed Kennedy on his own, debate raged for years over whether a second shooter was involved and if the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy theory.
AP Photo/Jim Altgens
This browser does not support the video element.
AP
The limousine carrying the mortally wounded president races toward a Dallas hospital.
Justin Newman/AP
Justin Newman/AP
Dallas police Lt. J.C. Day examines the rifle allegedly used in the assassination of Kennedy.
AP
AP
Park Chung-hee, president of South Korea
As Park’s popularity waned through his tenure, he became the target of several assassination attempts. On Oct. 26, 1979, the country’s third president was killed by the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency at a restaurant near the presidential residence.
AP
The assailant, Kim Jae Kyu, was a lifelong friend of Park and opened fire during a heated argument at dinner, killing the president’s bodyguard, driver and four others.
To this day, the motive of the assassination remains unclear. According to some speculation, Kim hoped the president’s death would help restore democratic freedoms that Park had gradually suppressed during his 18 years in office.
AP
South Korea President Park Chung-hee with U.S. President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter during a ceremony in Seoul in 1979.
AP
AP
The bodies of presidential bodyguard Kim Young-seop and driver Kim Young-tae on the day Park was assassinated.
MBC TV/AP
MBC TV/AP
Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt
Sadat was attending a military parade on Oct. 6, 1981 — to celebrate the anniversary of Egypt’s successful crossing of the Suez Canal — when a truck skidded to a halt and four men jumped out and began firing, throwing grenades toward a crowd of Egyptian government officials. The president was hit repeatedly and died two hours later. Ten other people also died; Vice President Hosni Mubarak survived.
MBC TV/AP
The group responsible opposed Sadat’s decision to make peace with Israel two years earlier.
MBC TV/AP
Egypt President Anwar Sadat at the start of the military parade in Cairo where he would be assassinated.
Bill Foley/AP
Bill Foley/AP
Egyptian soldiers tend to the wounded after the attack in Cairo that killed Sadat.
AP
AP
Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India
Following the footsteps of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, Gandhi tried to unify the many cultural differences that divided India under British rule. Eventually, though, she began suspending civil liberties and clamped down on political opponents.
AP
She launched Operation Blue Star, an Army initiative to flush out Sikh extremists from a prominent temple in Punjab. On Oct. 31, 1984, Gandhi was assassinated in her office by two Sikh bodyguards she had thought she could trust.
AP
India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with astronauts Rakesh Sharma and Ravish Malhotra in New Delhi in 1983.
Sondeep Shankar/Getty Images
Sondeep Shankar/Getty Images
Gandhi's body is cremated in New Delhi in 1984.
Jean-Claude Francolon/Getty Images
Jean-Claude Francolon/Getty Images
Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden
On the evening of Feb. 28, 1986, Palme and his wife, Lisbeth, were walking home from a movie theater in central Stockholm when they were attacked by a lone gunman who fatally shot the prime minister in the back and wounded his wife.
Jean-Claude Francolon/Getty Images
Only recently did prosecutors confirm that the assailant was a man named Stig Engstrom, who had weapons training and was critical of Palme’s policies.
Engstrom killed himself in 2000 while still under investigation.
Jean-Claude Francolon/Getty Images
Olof Palme, who would be assassinated while prime minister of Sweden, is seen in Moscow in 1981.
AP
AP
The pool of blood on a Stockholm pavement where Palme was assassinated in 1986.
Borje Thuresson/AP
Borje Thuresson/AP
Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel
A right-wing Israeli extremist shot and killed Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995, as he left a Tel Aviv rally attended by tens of thousands of people in support of the Oslo accords between his country and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Borje Thuresson/AP
Rabin, a former Israeli general, was a key engineer of the peace pact. The gunman, a student named Yigal Amir, was angry about the talks with Palestinians. Amir was among the founders of an illegal Jewish settlement, The Washington Post reported at the time.
Borje Thuresson/AP
Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres wave to the crowd at a “Yes to Peace” rally in Tel Aviv in 1995 shortly before an attack would leave Rabin dead.
Sven Nackstrand/AFP
Sven Nackstrand/AFP
This browser does not support the video element.
AP
Israeli security agents push Rabin into a car after he was fatally wounded.
AFP/Getty Images
AFP/Getty Images
Rafiq Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon
Hariri was killed when a truck bomb ripped through his car on Feb. 14, 2005, on a seaside avenue in Beirut. Nearly two dozen other people also died in the attack, which triggered years of political upheaval.
AFP/Getty Images
A U.N.-backed special tribunal ultimately convicted three members of the militant group and political party Hezbollah.
AFP/Getty Images
Rafiq Hariri listens during a parliament session in Beirut in 2005.
Hassan Ibrahim/AFP/Getty Images
Hassan Ibrahim/AFP/Getty Images
This browser does not support the video element.
TWP
The site of the bombing that killed Hariri in 2005.
Joseph Barrak
Joseph Barrak
Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan
Bhutto, the country’s first female prime minister, was killed when a bomb exploded as she left a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27, 2007. More than 20 other people also were killed.
Pakistani authorities blamed the attack on the Pakistani Taliban chief.
Joseph Barrak
In 2010, a U.N. investigation raised suspicions about the role of the Pakistani government and military in Bhutto’s death. It accused officials of “inexcusable” failures to provide her with sufficient security and documented what it described as attempts by intelligence services to impede probes into the assassination.
Joseph Barrak
Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, addresses thousands of supporters at a campaign rally minutes before she was assassinated in 2007.
John Moore/Getty Images
John Moore/Getty Images
Bhutto waves from her car just seconds before being assassinated.
John Moore/Getty Images
John Moore/Getty Images
A bomb explodes next to the vehicle carrying Bhutto from the political rally.
John Moore/Getty Images
John Moore/Getty Images
Jovenel Moïse, president of Haiti
Men with assault weapons stormed the president’s home late on July 7, 2021. They riddled his body with bullets and wounded his wife.
The brazen attack followed months of political instability and gang violence in the Caribbean nation and took on international dimensions. U.S. prosecutors alleged that the crime was partly planned in the United States.
John Moore/Getty Images
Dozens of people were detained or named as suspects. But Haiti’s investigation has since stalled, and the motive remains unclear.
John Moore/Getty Images
Haiti President Jovenel Moïse arrives with his wife to mark the 10th anniversary of the country's devastating 2010 earthquake.
Chadan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
Chadan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
A bystander points to a vehicle with bullets holes outside the Moïses' residence in Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021.
Odelyn Joseph/AP
Odelyn Joseph/AP
Police exchange fire with possible suspects in the assassination of Moïse next to a police station in Port-au-Prince on July 8, 2021.
Valeria Baeriswyl/AFP/Getty Images
Valeria Baeriswyl/AFP/Getty Images
More from the Post
Shinzo Abe, former Japanese leader, is assassinated by gunman
The latest from The Washington Post
Credits
Editing by Susan Levine, Olivier Laurent and Reem Akkad.
