The Japanese Executive carried out this Friday the first execution since Sanae Takaichi assumed the position of Prime Minister, by hanging Sunao Takami, a 58-year-old man convicted of taking the lives of five people in 2009 after setting fire to a game parlor.
The execution of Takami, communicated by Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi in a press conference reported by the official news agency Kyodo, represents the first application of the death penalty in 14 months. The Justice Minister defended that the measure was adopted "after extremely careful and thorough consideration."
Takami sprayed gasoline on a 'pachinko' parlor, the well-known Japanese game with steel balls, in the city of Osaka before setting it on fire. In the attack, four customers and one worker of the establishment died, and around a dozen people were injured.
Takami's defense argued that the accused suffered from "delusions derived from a mental illness," but the Osaka District Court concluded that he retained his mental faculties and was fully responsible for his actions. Later, the Osaka High Court and the Supreme Court upheld this ruling.
In June 2025, Takahiro Shiraishi, 34 years old, known as Japan's "Twitter Killer," was executed after being found guilty of murdering, dismembering, and storing the bodies of nine people in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo. Most of the victims were young women who had posted suicidal thoughts on social media.