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Japan on Thursday hanged four death-row inmates, conducting the first set of executions this year and also the first in about three months, bringing the remaining number of inmates on death row to 95.
Justice Minister Eisuke Mori, who announced the executions at a news conference, said he had fully scrutinized the cases before issuing the execution order, which he claimed has nothing to do with Diet schedules.
Thursday's set of executions was the second under Mori since Prime Minister Taro Aso took office in September last year and appointed Mori to the justice portfolio. The ministry had last conducted executions Oct 28, hanging two inmates.
Among the four executed were Shojiro Nishimoto, 32, who had been convicted of killing four people, and Tadashi Makino, 58, who had been found guilty of killing a woman and injuring two others. The remaining two were Yukinari Kawamura, 44, and Tetsuya Sato, 39, who were convicted of burning two people to death in conspiracy.
Nishimoto was hanged at the Tokyo detention house, Makino at the Fukuoka detention house, and Kawamura and Sato at the Nagoya detention house.
''Each of the convicts was truly brutal for claiming the precious lives of others out of their really egoistic motives,'' Justice Minister Mori said at the news conference. ''As justice minister, I have quietly performed my duties.''
Makoto Miyazaki, head of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, called for a suspension of executions for a certain period of time, saying that now is the time for Japanese society to discuss the problems of capital punishment and to pursue its reforms.
The Justice Ministry has been carrying out executions at a rate of about once every two to three months from the time Kunio Hatoyama was appointed justice minister in August 2007 by then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Makino had been on the death row for 15 years and two months, Kawamura and Sato for two years and six months, and Nishimoto for two years.
Nishimoto stabbed a 59-year-old taxi driver to death in Kasugai, Aichi Prefecture, in January 2004. He also strangled or fatally stabbed three others in Nagano Prefecture from April through September that year and made away with cash, according to final court findings.
Makino intruded into a home in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, and stabbed a 25-year-old woman to death in March 1990, when he was on parole. He also injured the victim's mother and a female passer-by.
Kawamura and Sato abducted the 64-year-old wife of a coffeehouse operator and her younger sister and burned them to death in drums.
For three of the four inmates, less than three years had passed following the finalization of their death sentences, representing a sharply brief period of time compared with the average eight years for those who were executed in the 10 years through 2007, according to the Justice Ministry.
Fifteen death-row inmates were executed in 2008. Of the 15, less than four years had passed for 12 of them following the finalization of their sentences. Less than two years had passed for the two of the 12.
Of the 95 people currently on the death row, 55 have filed for a retrial, an increase of five from the previous round of executions in October.
Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, is believed to be among the 55. Asahara has been convicted of a number of crimes that include the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack against Tokyo's subway system that killed 12 people and injured thousands.
© Wire reports
27 Comments
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timorborder
Get some Japan, just hope these folks were guilty as charged....
techall
Googled them:
Tadashi Makino - sentenced to life for an earlier robery/murder, served 16 year and released on parole so he could do it again.
Yukinari Kawamura and Tetsuya Sato: Burned two elderly women alive because of a dispute about a 2.4 million yen debt owed by the husband of one of them.
Shojiro Nishimoto: Robbed and Killer four (4) people.
Nobody is gonna miss them.
timorborder
Who was the 4th person?
bobbafett
Nice post techall. The world is a better place without those scum.
Midnightpromise
and let's also just hope their victims are still dead.
Midnightpromise
Tadashi Makino murdered one woman, injured two more Yukinari Kawamura burned two sisters to death using a steel drum for a BBQ Shojiro Nishimoto liked killing taxi drivers for their money, four of them all told.
All of the victims are still most definitely 100% dead.
techall
Kawamura and Sato worked as a team.
Tatanka
I remember those two guys Kawamura and Sato. They put those poor women each in a 55-gallon drum and set them on fire. Can you imagine the terror and pain the victims went through. Oh wait, I'm not supposed to care about the victims. Come on liberal posters start whining about poor Kawamura and Sato and how the state has no right to mete out capital punishment as justice.
nath
Read it on the BBC hours ago. Shame on you, JT - scooped by a foreign rival.
Moderator: Quite the contrary.
nutsagain
Tatanka: This a clear call for the need of counseling. Might have turned these people around 180 degrees. Never underestimate counseling.
techall
nutsagain: This was a hit. The husband of one of the sisters owed money to a loan shark and refused to pay, so they hire killers to do their best. These guy were never going to be pillers of the community.
Midnightpromise
Counseling??????? Isn't that what your parents and teachers do during your "formative" years? looks like these guys flunked the class and have been expelled permanently.
bdiego
World is a better place, one of the things Japan gets right.
Shinato
Why aren't any of the mothers that kill the children on death row, to me it seems like they are only getting a suspended sentences? It's that a bit light?
Midnightpromise
Shinato, killing is generally accepted to be wrong, however, to stop from being truly barbaric in handing down death penalty we must look at mitigating reasons behind the acts. Killing someone unknown strictly for their money or possesions or to silence them is really bad. A mother that is mentally deminished and reaches the end of her sanity and kills her kids is a sad case, put her away for a LONG time. One must try and see the difference behind cold blooded murder, and the crime of taking a life due to mental illness and punish accordingly.
nutsagain
Counseling was an oblique reference to the futility of pretty much any method to reform these people and that it would be a waste of time. Perhaps spiritual counseling. But it was a silly post, sorry.
M51T
‘‘As justice minister, I have quietly performed my duties.’’
I'm impressed by this statement.
BBLeo
There is 95 left, does that include the latest sentenced to hang? Why waiting for so long to hang them and spending money on them, from one court to another and also all the costs to keep them behind the bars? I'm also wondering out of 95 left if there are any women amongst them? Justice Minister Eisuke Mori sure is in good business, and why people of Japan don't back off from such crime? Are they afraid that Justice Minister will out of his hobby? Now will have wait until May when jurors will decide faith of new coming murderers. Can Japan hang murderers? ‘YES WE CAN.’
nath
That settles that.
Molenir
Glad to see that the wait is being reduced. 2 years after the sentence is finalized is more then enough time. 8 years, or in that one case, 15 years is more then excessive.
VOR
In Japan, the condemned do not know their appointed time. They go to bed each night wondering if it is going to be their last. In the middle of the night, they get kicked away, led down dark hallways and strung up to die. That's justice!
walgreen
can't wait to see Shoko Asahara got his
Kevin Lee Brooke
nutsagain at 04:18 PM JST - 29th January Tatanka: This a clear call for the need of counseling. Might have turned these people around 180 degrees. Never underestimate counseling."
Counseling is bunk. You don't counsel murderers, you cleanse society of them - for ever. And, in extreme cases, you end their lives as they so chose to do to the innocent because they have absolutely nothing left to offer to society - be it normal or prison society.
This is what happened here.
Justice is served.
Molenir
lol, I'm pretty sure the poster who mentioned counseling was being facetious. Especially considering his later post...
albroc37
Well, thats how justice is serve in Japan. To be fair with the other criminals who were hanged already, those remaining 95 should also go too. They have to be executed too, why wait for them to file for retrial? They are already sentenced guilty. They should be hanged.
Kevin Lee Brooke
"ell, thats how justice is serve in Japan. To be fair with the other criminals who were hanged already, those remaining 95 should also go too. They have to be executed too, why wait for them to file for retrial? They are already sentenced guilty. They should be hanged."
Because LAMEnesty International would be all over the govy like stink of unko if they did that.
Molenir
As much as I empathize and desire the same thing, until the sentence is finalized, the appeals run their course, they shouldn't be executed. I do think there should be a time limit on appeals, particularly in the US. This allowing people 20-30 years on Death Row is ludicrous. Allowing them retrial after retrial is as well. I think there should be a hard cap of 2 years. 2 years after the trial, to get all the appeals in, for the judges to go through them, etc then execution for their crimes.