Japan on Friday carried out its first execution in a year, hanging a man who was convicted of killing two women in robberies, an official and reports said.
Japan, the only major industrialised nation other than the United States to practice capital punishment, gives inmates little advance notice before they are hanged and does not release their names to the public.
”An execution was carried out on a person whose death sentence has been confirmed,” said a justice ministry spokesperson who declined to elaborate further.
Jiji Press and public broadcaster NHK said the executed man was Susumu Kitagawa (58) who in 1983 killed a woman and robbed her of 15 000 yen ($140), and killed another woman in a 1989 armed robbery.
It was the first execution since September 14, 2004, when Japan hanged two killers, including a former psychiatric patient who stabbed eight children to death in a notorious school massacre.
Japan’s comparatively secretive way of carrying out executions has come under fire from international human rights groups, but a government survey in February said 81,4% of Japanese support capital punishment.
Authorities only announce the time of execution to the condemned inmate one or two hours in advance and without warning the family, precluding last-minute appeals.
It was only in 1998 that the justice ministry started confirming that executions had been carried out, but it still does not identify the inmates. – AFP
