Japan executes pachinko parlour arsonist who killed five people in Osaka

TOKYO – Japan on Aug 21 executed a man convicted of an arson attack on a pachinko parlour in 2009 that killed five people, the authorities said.

It was Japan’s first hanging since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people, was put to death in June 2025.

Sunao Takami, the man executed on Aug 21, doused a pachinko parlour – a popular game mixing pinball and a slot machine using small steel balls – near his home in Osaka with petrol and set it on fire, killing four customers and one employee.

Japan and the US are the only two Group of Seven countries that still use capital punishment, and surveys suggest there is strong support among the Japanese public.

In a 2024 government survey, 83 per cent saw the death penalty as “unavoidable”, although it also found that those in favour of abolishing capital punishment had risen to 17 per cent from 9 per cent five years earlier.

However, there is also widespread criticism of the system, with death row inmates typically informed only on the morning of their last day that they are about to be hanged.

There was one execution in 2022, three in 2021, three in 2019 and 15 in 2018, the Justice Ministry told AFP in 2025. There are around 100 people on death row.

Those in 2018 included leader Shoko Asahara and 12 former members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which orchestrated the 1995 sarin gas attacks on Tokyo’s subway system that killed 14 people.

Japanese law stipulates that executions must be carried out within six months of a final verdict after appeals are exhausted.

In reality, most inmates are left on tenterhooks in solitary confinement for years – and at times decades – with severe consequences for their mental health sometimes.

The government is also accused of a lack of transparency, as the Justice Ministry began disclosing the names of executed inmates only in 2007.

There have also been a number of wrongful convictions.

Most famously, Iwao Hakamada spent decades on death row for a 1966 quadruple murder before finally being released in 2014 and finally exonerated in 2024 at age 88.

A court ruled that investigators had tampered with evidence and said the former boxer had suffered “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement”.

He was the fifth death row inmate granted a retrial in Japan’s post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exonerations.

Campaigners have also shone a light on what they call “hostage justice”, which is when suspects are held for lengthy periods in pre-trial detention and pressured to confess. AFP