Japan hanged two death-row inmates early Friday in the first executions since late June, the government said.
The deaths bring to 11 the number of executions under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, which was inaugurated in December 2012.
“I ordered the executions after careful consideration,” Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki told a news conference.
Both were convicted of multiple murder.
Tsutomu Takamizawa, 59, a gang boss in the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest yakuza, or organized crime group, was sentenced to death for shooting three people to death in Gunma, north of Tokyo, between 2001 and 2005, the Justice Ministry said.
Mitsuhiro Kobayashi, a 56-year-old former taxi driver, was convicted of killing five people and injuring four others in 2001 by burning down an office in Aomori, northern Japan.
Japan now has 125 death-row inmates, the ministry said. It is one of the few major industrialized countries to apply capital punishment, alongside the United States.
Amnesty International Japan condemned Friday’s executions, saying Tanigaki carried out the executions as “his last job duty” before a cabinet reshuffle on September 3. The minister is expected to be replaced, the group said.
The group added that a total of 21 people have been hanged under Abe, as 10 were executed under his first administration, which lasted a year up to September 2007.
GNA
PDC
