Three Convicts Of The Murder Of Nine People In Japan Get Death Penalty After Dozens Of Years

Illustrations (Pexels / Ekaterina Bolovtsova)

JAKARTA - Three death row inmates were hanged Tuesday, the Justice Ministry said in the first executions in Japan since December 2019 and the first under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government.

The three were identified as Yasutaka Fujishiro, 65, who murdered seven of his relatives in Hyogo Prefecture in 2004, and Tomoaki Takanezawa, 54, and Mitsunori Onogawa, 44, who were convicted of murdering two employees at two separate pachinko parlors in Gunma Prefecture in 2003.

After Tuesday's execution, the number of prisoners on death row in Japan stood at 107.

The Kobe District Court in western Japan sentenced Fujishiro to death in May 2009, for a later ruling in June 2015, after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal.

Meanwhile, Takanezawa and Onogawa, who also robbed one of their victims and stole money from one of the pachinko parlors, were sentenced to death by the Saitama District Court near Tokyo.

Takanezawa's death sentence was completed in July 2005 after he withdrew his appeal, while Onogawa's sentence was finalized in June 2009 at the Supreme Court.

Following the execution, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara told reporters that it was "not appropriate to abolish (the country's death penalty system) given the current situation where heinous crimes continue to occur."

"Many Japanese think the death penalty is unavoidable in cases of very heinous crimes," Kihara said, citing Kyodo News Dec. 21.

Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the world's countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, according to Amnesty International.

Citing Reuters, death sentences are carried out by hanging in Japan and detainees are informed of their execution just hours before it is carried out.

The practice has long been condemned by human rights groups, because of the pressure it puts on death row inmates that any day could be their last.

Earlier, two death row inmates in November launched a lawsuit against the government, demanding a change in practice and compensation for the repercussions.

To note, the United States and Japan are the only industrial democracies that still apply the death penalty, with rights groups such as Amnesty International having been demanding change for decades. The last execution of the death penalty in the Land of the Rising Sun December 26, 2019.