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Japan hangs 4 convicted killers
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writer
42 mins ago
TOKYO – Japan hanged four convicted killers Thursday, amid criticism that the country's secretive and slow-moving justice system leaves inmates to languish on death row for decades.
Japan, one of the few industrialized countries that still has capital punishment, has boosted the pace of executions in recent years. The country hanged 15 people last year — the most since 1975 when 17 were executed, Justice Ministry official Katsuhisa Nagata said.
Though capital punishment has broad support in Japan, which is among the safest nations in the world, many critics say the system needs to be reformed because condemned criminals are often left waiting on death row for years. There are currently about 100 people on death row.
Others say the system is too secretive. Inmates do not know when they will be executed until the morning of their hanging. Executions are conducted in secret, and lawyers and family are only notified after the fact.
On Thursday, Shojiro Nishimoto, 32, was hanged at the Tokyo Detention Center after he had been convicted on four counts of murder and robbery. He killed three senior citizens who lived alone in separate attacks in April 2004, and a 59-year-old taxi driver in 2003.
Yukinari Kawamura, 44, and Tetsuya Sato, 39, also were hanged. They had been convicted of kidnapping a coffee shop owner and his wife in the central Japanese city of Nagoya in April 2000, then driving them to a remote forest and burning them to death.
Tadashi Makino, 58, was hanged for stabbing someone to death and assaulting two other people in the southern city of Kitakyushu in 1990.
The rise in executions has triggered strong protests from rights groups including Amnesty International, and Japan's bar association has proposed a moratorium on executions.
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writer
42 mins ago
TOKYO – Japan hanged four convicted killers Thursday, amid criticism that the country's secretive and slow-moving justice system leaves inmates to languish on death row for decades.
Japan, one of the few industrialized countries that still has capital punishment, has boosted the pace of executions in recent years. The country hanged 15 people last year — the most since 1975 when 17 were executed, Justice Ministry official Katsuhisa Nagata said.
Though capital punishment has broad support in Japan, which is among the safest nations in the world, many critics say the system needs to be reformed because condemned criminals are often left waiting on death row for years. There are currently about 100 people on death row.
Others say the system is too secretive. Inmates do not know when they will be executed until the morning of their hanging. Executions are conducted in secret, and lawyers and family are only notified after the fact.
On Thursday, Shojiro Nishimoto, 32, was hanged at the Tokyo Detention Center after he had been convicted on four counts of murder and robbery. He killed three senior citizens who lived alone in separate attacks in April 2004, and a 59-year-old taxi driver in 2003.
Yukinari Kawamura, 44, and Tetsuya Sato, 39, also were hanged. They had been convicted of kidnapping a coffee shop owner and his wife in the central Japanese city of Nagoya in April 2000, then driving them to a remote forest and burning them to death.
Tadashi Makino, 58, was hanged for stabbing someone to death and assaulting two other people in the southern city of Kitakyushu in 1990.
The rise in executions has triggered strong protests from rights groups including Amnesty International, and Japan's bar association has proposed a moratorium on executions.
