The execution of Takahiro Shiraishi would be the first instance of capital punishment in Japan since 2022
Japan has executed a death row prisoner, public broadcaster NHK and other media outlets said Friday, the first time since 2022 that the country has enacted capital punishment.
The justice ministry declined to confirm the hanging but NHK, citing government sources, said the prisoner was 34-year-old Takahiro Shiraishi, who murdered nine people in 2017.
Shiraishi – dubbed the “Twitter killer” – was sentenced to death for murdering and dismembering nine people he met on the social media platform, now called X.
Shiraishi is said to have lured his mostly female victims, aged between 15 and 26, to his apartment near Tokyo, where he killed them and cut up their bodies.
