Japan executes man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering 9 people in his apartment
A man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering nine people in his apartment near Tokyo was executed Friday, Japan 's Justice Ministry said.
Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the ' Twitter killer,' was sentenced to death in 2020 for the killings in 2017 of the nine victims, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media. He was also convicted of sexually abusing female victims.
The execution was carried out as calls grow to abolish capital punishment in Japan since the acquittal of the world's longest-serving death-row inmate Iwao Hakamada last year.
Shiraishi was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House in high secrecy with nothing disclosed until the execution was done.
Police arrested him in 2017 after finding the bodies of eight females and one male in cold-storage cases in his apartment.
Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes. He killed the eight women, including teenagers, after raping them, and also killed a boyfriend of one of the women to silence him.
Japan's suicide rate ranks among the world's highest. Following a recent decline, the number has climbed back this year as people were hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Japan's crime rate is relatively low, but it has seen some high-profile mass killings in recent years.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
32 minutes ago
- BBC News
Cassius Turvey: Men jailed for life for brutal murder of Aboriginal boy
Warning: This article contains the name and images of an Indigenous person who has died. His family has given permission to use his name and image. Two men have been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering an Aboriginal schoolboy, in a case that shocked Turvey died of head injuries after a brutal assault on the outskirts of Perth in October 2022. The 15-year-old's killing prompted nationwide protests and vigils, also sparking debate on pervasive racism in the country. The killers, Jack Brearley and Brodie Palmer, were "callous and lacking in empathy" as they chased Turvey down and savagely beat the Noongar Yamatji boy with a metal pole, Justice Peter Quinlan told a packed courtroom on Forth, who was convicted of manslaughter, was sentenced to 12 years in jail. The gallery cheered as Justice Quinlan handed down the sentences, while Cassius' mother Mechelle Turvey burst into tears, local media trial, Brearley, 24, and Palmer, 30, had each blamed the other for Cassius' death. Justice Quinlan found Brearley delivered the fatal blows, adding that he had shown "no remorse whatsoever".Brearley had alleged that he acted in self-defence as Cassius was armed with a knife, which the judge rejected as "complete fabrication". "You cannot make amends when you don't acknowledge the pain that you have caused."You cannot be remorseful when in an effort to avoid responsibility… You seek to frame an innocent man and when that does not work you give false evidence that your co-accused was in fact the killer," the chief justice said in a scathing rebuke reported by ABC did not physically strike Cassius, but Justice Quinlan ruled that he was "equally responsible but not equally culpable".The group had also assaulted other Aboriginal teenagers in what the judge described as "so-called vigilante justice [that] was completely misdirected". A fourth offender, Ethan MacKenzie, was handed a two-and-a-half years jail term for his part in some of the other one case, a 13-year-old boy's own crutches were used to beat him, causing bruising to his said the group had been "hunting for kids" because somebody had damaged Brearley's car attack on Cassius was the culmination of a complex series of tit-for-tat events that had nothing to do with him, they said. Justice Quinlan condemned Brearley, Palmer and Forth for their "celebration" after the assaults, calling it a "grotesque display of your complete disregard of the lives of the children you had attacked".In her victim impact statement on Thursday, Cassius' mother Mechelle Turvey said the actions of the three men were racially motivated. "Cassius was not just part of my life, he was my future," Ms Turvey said. "There are no words that can fully capture the devastation of losing someone you love to violence."While Justice Quinlan did not find the attack to be motivated by race, he said the attackers' use of racial slurs "rippled" through the Aboriginal community and created "justifiable fear". "The fear is real and legitimate. You are responsible for that fear," he said.
Telegraph
37 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Japan executes ‘Twitter killer' who murdered nine people
Japan has executed a man convicted of murdering and dismembering nine people in his apartment near Tokyo. Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the 'Twitter killer', was sentenced to death for killing eight women and one man in 2017, most of whom had posted suicidal comments on social media. Shiraishi was arrested later that year after police discovered the bodies in cold-storage cases in his apartment. He had found the victims on Twitter and offered to assist them with their suicidal thoughts. The 34-year-old raped the three teenage girls and five women before murdering them, as well as killing a boyfriend of one of the victims to silence him. Keisuke Suzuki, the Japanese justice minister, said he signed the execution order earlier this week but did not witness Shiraishi's hanging. He told an emergency press conference: 'The case caused extremely serious outcomes and dealt a major shock wave and unease to the society.' Calls to abolish death penalty Shiraishi's death has marked the first time since 2022 that Japan has enacted capital punishment. Calls for the Japanese government to abolish the practice have continued to grow after the acquittal of Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest-serving death row inmate, in 2024. Mr Suzuki justified the need for execution and insisted that the overwhelming majority of Japan's population still supported it. 'I believe it is not appropriate to abolish execution,' he said, adding that there is concern about the country's crime rate. Some 105 criminals are on death row in Japan, with 49 seeking retrials, according to authorities. Executions in Japan are so secret that prisoners are not even informed of their fate until the morning of their death. Shiraishi was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House on Friday morning with nothing disclosed until after the execution. Japan's most recent execution before Shiraishi was in July 2022 of a man convicted of killing seven people in a vehicle crash and stabbing rampage in a crowded shopping district in Tokyo four years earlier.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Japan hangs 'Twitter killer' in first execution since 2022
TOKYO — Japan executed a man on Friday who killed nine people after contacting them on social media, the first use of capital punishment in the country in nearly three years. Takahiro Shiraishi had been sentenced to death for his 2017 strangling and dismembering of eight women and one man in his apartment in Zama city in Kanagawa near Tokyo. He was dubbed the 'Twitter killer' because he contacted victims via the social media platform. Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who authorized Shiraishi's hanging, said he made the decision after careful examination, taking into account the convict's 'extremely selfish' motive for crimes that 'caused great shock and unrest to society.' It followed the execution in July 2022 of a man who went on a stabbing rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara shopping district in 2008. It was also the first time a death penalty was carried out since Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government was inaugurated last October. In September last year, a Japanese court acquitted Iwao Hakamada, who had spent the world's longest time on death row after a wrongful conviction for crimes committed nearly 60 years ago. Capital punishment is carried out by hanging in Japan and prisoners are notified of their execution hours before it is carried out, which has long been decried by human rights groups for the stress it puts on death-row prisoners. 'It is not appropriate to abolish the death penalty while these violent crimes are still being committed,' Suzuki told a news conference. There are currently 105 death row inmates in Japan, he added.
