Japan executes man convicted of 9 murders, 1st hanging since 2022

Kyodo News

a day ago

KYODO NEWS - 15 hours ago - 18:15 | All, Japan
Japan executed on Friday a man convicted of the 2017 serial murders of nine people near Tokyo, the government said, marking the country's first hanging since July 2022.
The death sentence of Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, dubbed Japan's "Twitter killer," was finalized in 2021, after he withdrew an appeal. He was found guilty of murdering, dismembering and storing the bodies of his nine victims, who had posted suicidal thoughts on social media, in his apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture.
"I ordered the execution after careful and deliberate consideration," Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told a press conference held to announce the hanging, which was the first since Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba took office in October last year.
The execution comes as questions are raised about the country's capital punishment system after the exoneration of Iwao Hakamata, 89, who spent more than four decades on death row.
He was acquitted over a 1966 quadruple murder and his retrial was finalized in October 2024.
Shiraishi was also convicted of sexually assaulting all eight female murder victims and stealing cash. Using a Twitter handle that loosely translates as "hangman," he invited his eventual victims to his apartment after they had expressed suicidal thoughts.
The nearly three-year hiatus in executions in Japan is thought to be due to the dismissal of former Justice Minister Yasuhiro Hanashi over inappropriate comments about the death penalty at a political gathering in 2022.
He said the ministerial post is a "low-key" position and it becomes "a top story in daytime news programs only when stamping a seal on documents of executions."
Before Shiraishi, Tomohiro Kato, 39, was the last to be executed, in July 2022. He was convicted for a 2008 rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara district in which seven people were killed and 10 others injured.
"No one has the right to take someone's life and it cannot be justified for any reason. Amnesty objects to any form of execution without exceptions," the Japanese branch of Amnesty International said in a statement.
The human rights organization urged the Japanese government to take measures to swiftly end the practice.
While domestic legal experts have called for a review of the death penalty amid international pressure to end executions and following Hakamata's acquittal, a 2024 government survey on the issue showed over 80 percent of those polled support the system, calling it "unavoidable."
It was the fifth consecutive time that support for capital punishment exceeded 80 percent in the government poll, conducted every five years.
After the execution of Shiraishi, there are 105 inmates on death row in Japan, of whom 49 have filed retrial requests.
Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven nations still handing down capital sentences. The European Union, which bars countries with the death penalty from joining, has been vocal in calling on Japan to review its stance.
According to Amnesty International, a total of 15 countries conducted executions in 2024.
Related coverage:
Death penalty ruling finalized for Japan's "Twitter killer"
Man acquitted of 1966 murders awarded record criminal compensation
FEATURE: Steady-handed prison guard remembers faces of condemned
FOCUS: Japan makes major step toward revising controversial retrial system