Japan executes death row inmate, 1st since Takaichi took office

Japan on Friday hanged a man convicted of killing five people in an arson attack on a pachinko parlor in the western Japanese city of Osaka in 2009, the justice minister said, making it the first execution under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Report informs via Kyodo.

Sunao Takami, 58, was the first person to be executed in Japan since June 2025.

Takami poured gasoline on the floor of the pachinko parlor on July 5, 2009, in an attack that also injured 10 people. His death sentence was finalized in 2016.

"I ordered the execution after careful consideration," Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi told a press conference.

Japan's capital punishment system has come under increased scrutiny since Iwao Hakamata, now 90, was exonerated in 2024 after more than four decades on death row.

In June 2025, Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, dubbed Japan's "Twitter killer" was executed after he was found guilty of murdering, dismembering and storing the bodies of nine people in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo, after they had posted suicidal thoughts on social media.