Japan: man executed over killing 5 people

Japan on August 21, 2026 executed a man after he was convicted of killing five people, in first such punishment since Sanae Takaichi was elected prime minister last October.

The court had finalized the death sentence of Sunao Takami, 58, in 2016, and he was executed on August 21, becoming “the first person to be executed in Japan since June 2025,” Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.

A six-member jury and a panel of three judges rejected the defence's argument that Takami was mentally ill at the time of the crime, and sentenced him to hang in 2011.

He was found guilty of pouring gasoline on the floor of a pachinko parlor on July 5, 2009, the report added.

At least 10 other people were wounded in the attack.

“I ordered the execution after careful and careful consideration,” Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi told reporters after the execution.

Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, had been the last person executed in Japan in June 2025 for “murdering, dismembering and storing the bodies of nine people” in Zama, Kanagawa province, near the capital Tokyo, the report added.

Notably, in 2024, a Japanese court exonerated Iwao Hakamata after more than four decades on death row.

(Source: Anadolu Ajansı, 21/08/2026)