Japan executed a man on Friday who killed nine people after contacting them on social networks, the first use of capital punishment in the country in almost three years.
Takahiro Shiraishi had been sentenced to death for his strangulation and his dismemberment of eight women and a man in his apartment in Zama City in Kanagawa near Tokyo. He was nicknamed the “Twitter killer” when he contacted the victims via the social media platform.
The Minister of Justice, Keisuke Suzuki, who authorized the suspension of Shraishi, said that he had decided after a meticulous examination, taking into account the “extremely selfish” reason for the condemned for the crimes which “caused a big shock and troubles to society”.
He followed the execution in July 2022 of a man who was unleashed in the shopping district of Tokyo Akihabara in 2008.
It was also the first time that a death penalty was imposed that the government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was inaugurated last October.
In September of last year, a Japanese court acquitted Iwao Hakamada, who had spent the longest in the world corridor after an unjustified conviction for crimes committed almost 60 years ago.
The capital punishment is exercised by the suspension in Japan, and the prisoners are informed of their hours of execution before its realization, which has long been criticized by human rights groups for the stress it puts in the prisoners of the schedule.
“It is not appropriate to abolish the death penalty while these violent crimes are still being put in progress,” Suzuki said at a press conference. There are currently 105 detainees in death driving in Japan, he added.
