Japan's justice minister, dubbed the "grim reaper" for ordering...

Japan's justice minister, dubbed the "grim reaper" for ordering a record number of executions, defended the death penalty as "civilised" but said he loses sleep over signing the orders. Thirteen people have been hanged in Japan since Kunio Hatoyama took office in August, a record high for the period. Japan lifted a de facto moratorium on executions in 1993. "This is civilisation," Hatoyama said in an interview published Monday in the Shukan Post weekly. "The death-row inmates... were not taken away by the 'Grim Reaper' but went to their deaths in accordance with the law," he said. The death penalty enjoys wide public support in Japan, which has one of the world's lowest crime rates. The latest hangings were last month and there are 102 people on death row. But Japan, the only major industrialised nation other than the United States to apply the death penalty, has come under fire from the European Union and human rights groups for stepping up the pace of executions. "I can't sleep for the several days between signing the orders and execution. I'm alone with no help as the justice minister has nobody to consult with" on death warrants, he said.