Japan has executed Sunao Takami, 58, who killed five people in a 2009 pachinko parlor arson. This is the first time the country has carried out the death sentence since June 2025.
Takami had set fire to the gaming parlor in Osaka with gasoline, resulting in the deaths of four customers and one employee. In 2011, a jury and judges rejected the defense's claim of mental illness and sentenced him to death.
"We ordered the execution after careful and thorough consideration," Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi stated on Friday. This is the first execution to take place under the Takaichi administration.
Last year, in June 2025, Japan executed Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the "Twitter killer," for the murder and dismemberment of nine people in 2017. Police discovered body parts in Zama, near Tokyo, while searching for one of Shiraishi's victims.
Surveys indicate significant public support for capital punishment in Japan. However, rights groups have criticized the prolonged solitary confinement of death row inmates and the lack of transparency surrounding execution dates.
Japan and the United States remain the only Group of Seven (G7) nations that still implement the death penalty. In Japan, death row prisoners are typically informed of their impending execution only a few hours beforehand.