Tim Cook honors Shinzo Abe following assassination

Apple CEO Tim Cook has honored the late Shinzo Abe after the former Japanese Prime minister was assassinated on Friday.

In a tweet Friday morning Cook stated:

I am shocked by the loss of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. He was such an important leader and I was honored to have spent time with him. Our hearts are with his loved ones—and all of our friends in Japan.

Cook met the then-serving Prime Minister while on a tour of Japan in 2016 (pictured). He praised the innovation of Japan at the time, stating that the iPhone would not have been born without it, and hailed Japan’s software developers, having met some as young as eight on the trip.

At the time Abe’s office said it wanted to make Japan “the easiest country in the world to do business in” and that it would “make steady efforts to understand the merits of Japan and to ensure that foreign companies that make use of it can invest in Japan more and more.”

Abe died in hospital on Friday after he was shot twice at a political campaign event. He was giving a speech in Nara when he was attacked by a 41-year-old gunman, who is now in custody. Japan’s current PM Fumio Kishida denounced the attack as “barbaric and malicious” and said, “this attack is an act of brutality that happened during the elections – the very foundation of our democracy – and is absolutely unforgivable.” Footage from the scene appears to show the suspect, a local resident, had used a handmade gun in the attack.