Japan hangs man convicted of killing 5 people at pachinko parlor

Sunao Takami, a 58-year-old man, was executed in Japan on Friday for setting fire to a pachinko parlor in Osaka in 2009, killing five people and injuring ten others. This marks the first execution by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government as the nation grapples with mounting calls for transparency and the abolition of capital punishment.

Takami was convicted of murder, attempted murder, and arson in a 2011 Osaka District Court ruling, and his appeals were denied in 2016. Japan currently has 100 people on death row, with 43 seeking retrials. The justice ministry carried out the hanging without disclosing the name of the inmate until the morning of the execution, a practice that has been criticized as secretive.

The justice minister defended the hanging method, citing Supreme Court decisions that deemed it less cruel than other methods such as lethal injection, electrocution, and shooting. Japan remains the only country in the G7 to practice capital punishment, despite growing international criticism.