Japan carries out first execution in more than a year

Japan has carried out its first execution in more than a year.

TodayPress TV reports that 58-year-old Sunao Takami was executed by hanging on Friday after being convicted of setting fire to a pachinko parlor in Osaka in 2009, killing five people.

Four customers and one employee were killed in the incident. Takami was sentenced to death by the Osaka District Court in 2011. His appeals were ultimately rejected, and the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in 2016.

The defense had argued that Takami had been suffering from a mental illness at the time of the crime, but the court did not accept the argument.

Japan and the United States are currently the only G7 countries that retain the death penalty. In Japan, death-row inmates are typically notified of their execution only on the day of the hanging, often just hours beforehand.

Turkan Iskandarli