Crime Japan executes Zama Twitter killer convicted of nine murders

[thomas]

Today, Japan carried out its first execution since July 2022, putting to death a man convicted of the 2017 serial killings of nine individuals in Zama, the government announced. Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, known in the media as the "Twitter killer," was sentenced to death in 2021 after choosing to withdraw his appeal. He was convicted of murdering and dismembering nine people, many of whom had expressed suicidal thoughts online, and hiding their remains in his apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Shiraishi was also convicted of sexually assaulting all eight female murder victims and stealing cash. Using a Twitter handle that loosely translates as "hangman," he invited his eventual victims to his apartment after they had expressed suicidal thoughts. The nearly three-year hiatus in executions in Japan is thought to be due to the dismissal of former Justice Minister Yasuhiro Hanashi over inappropriate comments about the death penalty at a political gathering in 2022. He said the ministerial post is a "low-key" position and it becomes "a top story in daytime news programs only when stamping a seal on documents of executions." Before Shiraishi, Tomohiro Kato, 39, was the last to be executed, in July 2022. He was convicted for a 2008 rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara district in which seven people were killed and 10 others injured.

Japan hangs 'Twitter killer' in first execution since 2022

Takahiro Shiraishi was sentenced to death for his 2017 strangling and dismembering of eight women and one man in his apartment near Tokyo.

www.reuters.com

Japan executes man convicted of 9 murders, 1st hanging since 2022

Japan executed on Friday a man convicted of the 2017 serial murders of nine people near Tokyo, the government said, marking the country's first hanging since July 2022.

english.kyodonews.net