The Justice Ministry said yesterday that the move to release the names was initiated in the interests of promoting greater openness and understanding about the appropriateness of the death penalty.

Executions were carried out in Tokyo on Seiha Fujima, 47, and Hiroki Fukawa, 42, as well as Noboru Ikemoto, 75, in the western city of Osaka, the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry had previously announced only the number of people hanged, although Japanese media would reveal their identities.

One of the few industrialised nations to retain the death penalty, Japan has routinely been criticised by human rights activists for keeping details of its executions secret.

But opinion polls show most Japanese favour capital punishment despite relatively low rates of crime.

The hangings bring to nine the number of executions this year in Japan.

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, who backs the death penalty, told a parliamentary panel he had sought the change in response to requests from families of murder victims.

The ministry has in the past argued that releasing the names would be inconsiderate to the families of executed people and to other death-row inmates.

Human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the move as progress but reiterated its call on Japan to abolish the death penalty.

Fujima had been convicted for five murders committed in 1981 and 1982, while Fukawa's two murders took place in 1999 and 2000, and Ikemoto's three in 1985.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS