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Japan hanged on Friday a man convicted of a 2009 arson attack on an Osaka pachinko parlour that killed five people, with the prisoner as usual informed shortly before his execution.
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It was Japan’s first execution since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people, was put to death in June 2025.
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Sunao Takami doused the pachinko arcade — a mechanical game involving thousands of small steel balls — near his home with petrol and set it on fire, killing four customers and one employee.
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“This incident resulted in extremely serious consequences … and sent shock waves through society and instilled a deep sense of fear,” Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said.
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“As minister of justice, I ordered the execution of the death sentence after giving the matter the most careful consideration possible,” Hiraguchi told reporters.
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He also said that Takami, 58, was only informed of his impending execution on Friday morning, as is the standard practice in Japan.
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Broadcaster NHK said he was hanged in Osaka.
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“This is because there is concern that notifying the prisoner before the execution date could destabilise their emotional state, and it is believed that doing so might actually cause them undue suffering,” Hiraguchi said.
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Global rise
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Japan and the United States are the only two G7 countries to still use capital punishment, and surveys suggest there is strong support among the Japanese public.
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Amnesty International said in May that recorded executions worldwide rose 78 percent in 2025 to 2,707, the highest number documented by the rights group since 1981.
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Iran put at least 2,159 to death, more than double the 2024 number, a minimum of 356 in Saudi Arabia, 47 in the United States and 17 in Singapore, according to Amnesty.
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“The 2025 total does not include the thousands of executions that Amnesty International believes continued to be carried out in China, which remained the world’s lead executioner,” it said.
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A Japanese government survey in 2024 found that 83 percent of respondents considered the death penalty “unavoidable.”
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Support for abolition, however, rose to 17 percent from nine percent five years earlier.
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The justice ministry told AFP last year that Japan carried out one execution in 2022, three in 2021, three in 2019 and 15 in 2018.
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There were around 100 people on death row.
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Sarin attack
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Among those executed in 2018 included guru Shoko Asahara and 12 former members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which orchestrated the 1995 sarin gas attacks on Tokyo’s subway system that killed 14 people.
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Japanese law stipulates that executions must be carried out within six months of a final verdict after appeals are exhausted.
