No executions carried out in Japan for over 2 years

Japan has not executed anyone for more than two years, apparently reflecting its recent cautious stance after previously hanging death row inmates every few months under the government led by the Liberal Democratic Party.

The halt in executions could be linked to the dismissal of the justice minister in 2022 over inappropriate comments about the death penalty and the ongoing retrial of Iwao Hakamada, an aging former inmate accused of a 1966 quadruple murder, according to experts.

The most recent execution in Japan was carried out on July 26, 2022, when 39-year-old Tomohiro Kato was hanged following his conviction over a 2008 rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara district in which seven people were killed and 10 others were injured, with the order given by then Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa.

Furukawa stepped down the following month and was succeeded by Yasuhiro Hanashi, who was sacked three months later by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida over remarks widely seen as making light of his role in authorizing executions of death row inmates.

The justice minister is a "low-key" position and it becomes "a top story in daytime news programs only when stamping a seal on documents of execution," Hanashi told a political gathering in November 2022, days before his dismissal.

Meanwhile, the retrial of 88-year-old Hakamada began last October at the Shizuoka District Court, raising hopes that the former boxer will be acquitted when the ruling is issued on Sept. 26.

Following his conviction in September 1968, Hakamada's mental state deteriorated as he became the world's longest-serving death row inmate before new evidence led to his release in 2014.

Japan's system of capital punishment has drawn international criticism for its lack of transparency regarding the timing of executions, with death row inmates typically notified just hours before.

But only 9.0 percent of respondents said the death penalty "should be abolished" in an opinion poll conducted by the Japanese government in 2019, while 80.8 percent said its existence "could not be helped."

The death sentences of 108 inmates had been finalized as of the end of June, according to the Justice Ministry.

The criminal procedure law stipulates that an execution is to be carried out within six months of the finalization of a ruling, but the average period between a finalized ruling and an execution was around nine years from 2014 to 2023.

After the LDP returned to power in December 2012, Sadakazu Tanigaki ordered 11 executions when he served as justice minister through September 2014.

In 2018, then Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa ordered the executions of 13 former members of the AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult, including its founder Shoko Asahara.

No executions were conducted from December 2019 to December 2021, possibly linked to the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in teh summer of 2021 and a controversial Diet debate in 2020 on extending the retirement age of a high-ranking prosecutor deemed close to then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his aides, experts said.

There were also no executions for more than three years from November 1989, after a death row inmate convicted of killing a 6-year-old girl was acquitted earlier that year in a retrial.

In December 1989, the U.N. General Assembly adopted an optional protocol aimed at the abolition of the death penalty, which Japan has not signed.

Source: kyodonews.net, Staff, August 11, 2024

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