Japan hangs 3 inmates in first execution since 2019
Tokyo, Dec 21 (EFE).- Japan on Tuesday hanged three prisoners, the first capital sentences carried out by the current government and the first execution in the country in two years, the justice ministry announced.
Yasutaka Fujishiro, 65, Tomoaki Takanezawa, 54, and Mitsunori Onogawa, 44 were the first prisoners to be executed since Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came to power in October.
The last death penalty was carried out in Japan in December 2019 during former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s term.
Fujishiro was convicted of killing seven of his relatives in western Japan’s Hyogo prefecture in 2004.
The other two inmates, Takanezawa and Onogawa, were sentenced to capital punishment for murdering two employees while robbing two pachinko arcades in Gunma in central Japan in 2003.
The first of the prisoners was executed in Osaka, in the west of the country, and the other two in the capital city of Tokyo, Japanese Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa said in a press conference.
There are currently 108 convicts on death row in Japan.
Out of these, 59 have requested a review of their sentences, the minister, who is responsible for signing execution orders, said.
Furukawa had given the order for Tuesday’s executions on Dec. 17.
Japan is the only industrialized and democratic nation apart from the United States that carries out capital punishment.
Its reluctance to end this practice has been harshly criticized by organizations such as Amnesty International. EFE
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