(Pachinko Parlour on Fire. Photo by The Star)
Japan has carried out the execution of a man who set fire to a gaming parlour in 2009, killing five people.
This marks the first time the country has enacted the death sentence in more than a year.
Sunao Takami, 58, poured gasoline inside a pachinko gaming parlour near his home in Osaka and set it on fire.
The blaze k!lled four customers and one worker.
In 2011, a jury and panel of judges rejected Takami’s defence team’s claim that he was mentally unfit at the time of the crime and sentenced him to hang.
Japan and the United States are the only major developed nations among the G7 that still carry out capital punishment.
In Japan, d£ath row inmates are typically informed of their execution only a few hours before it takes place.
The Justice Minister announced the execution on Friday, saying the decision was made after careful and thorough consideration.
This was the first execution ordered under the current administration.
Last year in June, Japan executed another man known as the “Twitter killer,” who had murdered and cut up nine people in 2017.
That man, Takahiro Shiraishi, was discovered after police found body parts while searching for one of his victims in a city near Tokyo in October 2017.
Public opinion polls show that most Japanese people support the death penalty.
However, human rights groups have raised concerns about how d£ath row prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for very long periods and have criticised the lack of openness about when executions will happen.
