Japan executed a man yesterday 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" as he contacted victims via the social media platform.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who authorised Shiraishi's hanging, said he decided 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 shopping district in Akihabara, in 2008.
It was also the first time the 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.
Suzuki told a press conference that it is not appropriate to abolish the death penalty while these violent crimes are still being committed.
He added that there are currently 105 death row inmates in Japan.
Source : Reuters
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