Tokyo, Aug 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Aug, 2019 ) :Japan on Friday hanged two men convicted of murder, the justice ministry said, the first executions this year after 15 death row inmates were executed in 2018.

With more than 100 inmates on death row, Japan is one of the few developed nations to retain the death penalty, and public support for it remains high despite international criticism, including from rights groups.

"I ordered the executions after very careful consideration," Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita told reporters.

The executed were 64-year-old Koichi Shoji and 50-year-old Yasunori Suzuki, a ministry official told AFP.

Shoji was convicted of killing two women and stealing cash in 2001 near Tokyo while Suzuki was convicting of murdering three women on the streets in southern Japan and stealing cash in 2004, according to media reports.

"These are extremely brutal cases in which they claimed lives of victims who had done nothing wrong for their selfish reasons," the minister said. </s> KYODO NEWS - Aug 2, 2019 - 13:12 | All, Japan

Japan hanged two death-row inmates Friday morning, the Justice Ministry said, in the country's first executions this year.

The two were identified by the ministry as Koichi Shoji, 64, who murdered two women in Kanagawa Prefecture in 2001, and Yasunori Suzuki, 50, who killed three women in Fukuoka Prefecture between 2004 and 2005.

"I ordered the executions based on careful consideration," Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita said at a press conference, noting the two "took away the lives of the victims who had done nothing wrong for very selfish reasons."

The latest hangings brought the number of executions under the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office in 2012, to 38.

They follow the executions last December of two men who were involved in the 1988 murder-robbery of the president and an employee of an investment advisory company. Japan also hanged AUM Shinrikyo cult guru Shoko Asahara, 63, and 12 former members of the doomsday cult in July last year.

(Japanese Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita)

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Japan hangs 2 inmates, matching highest-ever year's total of 15

Shoji was convicted of killing and taking money from Hiroko Hayashi, 54, in August 2001, and Fumiko Osawa, 42, in September that year in conspiracy with his girlfriend. His death sentence was finalized after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in November 2007.

Suzuki was found guilty of strangling to death 18-year-old Nana Kubota in Iizuka and fatally stabbing 62-year-old Toshiko Onaka in Kitakyushu, both in December 2004, as well as stabbing to death 23-year-old Keiko Fukushima and taking her handbag in Fukuoka the following January.

His sentence was finalized after the top court rejected his appeal in March 2011.

Japan's system of capital punishment has drawn international criticism, although some polls suggest the majority of Japanese support it. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has called for it to be abolished by 2020.

In December, dozens of lawmakers also established a group for discussing the future of Japan's death penalty system, including the potential introduction of lifetime imprisonment without parole. </s> Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita announced the executions of the two men, the first Japan has carried out this year (AFP Photo/JIJI PRESS)

Japan on Friday hanged two men convicted of murder, the justice ministry said, the first executions this year after 15 death row inmates were executed in 2018.

With more than 100 inmates on death row, Japan is one of the few developed nations to retain the death penalty, and public support for it remains high despite international criticism, including from rights groups.

"I ordered the executions after very careful consideration," Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita told reporters.

The executed were 64-year-old Koichi Shoji and 50-year-old Yasunori Suzuki, a ministry official told AFP.

Shoji was convicted of killing two women and stealing cash in 2001 near Tokyo while Suzuki was convicting of murdering three women on the streets in southern Japan and stealing cash in 2004, according to media reports.

"These are extremely brutal cases in which they claimed lives of victims who had done nothing wrong for their selfish reasons," the minister said.

Japan hanged 15 inmates in 2018, matching a 2008 record since the nation started publicly announcing executions in 1998.

Among them were a total of 13 people who belonged to the cult that carried out the fatal 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway and other crimes.

The Aum Shinrikyo cult members -- including former guru Shoko Asahara -- were executed in two stages in July 2018, drawing a line under the horrific attack which shocked the world and prompted national soul-searching over the group and its crimes.

The mass executions sparked some criticism from rights groups, including Amnesty International. </s> Two men sentenced to death for multiple murders have been executed in Japan -- the first time the death penalty has been used in the country this year.

Koichi Shoji, 64, and Yasunori Suzuki, 50, were executed by hanging on Friday, taking the total number of executions under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government to 38 since he took office in 2012

"These are extremely cruel cases taking the precious lives of the people who have no faults. I have ordered the execution of death penalty after giving doubly prudent consideration," Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita said.

Executions are done in secret in Japan, with no advance warning given to the prisoner, their family or legal representatives, according to Amnesty International.

Prisoners often only learn of their execution a matter of hours before it takes place.

Capital punishment is usually reserved for those who have committed multiple murders. All executions are carried out by hanging. Shoji robbed and killed two housewives in Kanagawa prefecture in 2001 together with his girlfriend. Suzuki was charged with robbing and murdering three women in separate assaults within a one month period in 2004. Japan's Code of Criminal Procedure states the death penalty should be implemented within six months of the sentence being issued, but that is almost never the case. The controversial system made global headlines in July last year when 13 members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which carried out the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, were executed Japan and the United States are the only two developed democracies to have capital punishment. About 170 states have either abolished or put a stay on executions since the United Nations General Assembly called for a universal moratorium on the death penalty in 2007. Last year, the country's Federation of Bar Associations called for Japan's system of capital punishment to be abolished by 2020. </s> TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan executed on Friday the former leader of a doomsday cult and six other members of the group that carried out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, killing 13 people and shattering the country’s myth of public safety.

The Aum Shinrikyo, or Aum Supreme Truth cult, which mixed Buddhist and Hindu meditation with apocalyptic teachings, staged a series of crimes including simultaneous sarin gas attacks on subway trains during rush hour in March 1995. Sarin, a nerve gas, was originally developed by the Nazis.

The images of bodies, many in business suits, sprawled across platforms stunned Japan, and triggered public safety steps such as the removal of non-transparent rubbish bins that remain in force to this day.

As well as killing the 13, the attack injured at least 5,800 people, some permanently.

Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa read out the names of the seven at a news conference and said what they had done was “extremely atrocious”.

“These crimes … plunged people not only in Japan but in other countries as well into deadly fear and shook society to its core,” Kamikawa said.

Chizuo Matsumoto, the cult’s leader who went by the name Shoko Asahara, was the first to be hanged, media said as it broke into regular programming to report the news.

Announcements of the other hangings followed through the morning.

“I think it’s right that he was executed,” said Shizue Takahashi, whose husband was a subway worker who died after removing a package of sarin from a train.

“My husband’s parents and my parents are already dead,” the silver-haired Takahashi added. “I think they would find it regrettable that they could not have heard the news of this execution.”

Executions are rare in Japan but surveys show most people support the death sentence.

Rights group Amnesty International said justice demanded accountability but also respect for civil rights.

“The death penalty can never deliver this as it is the ultimate denial of human rights,” Hiroka Shoji, the group’s East Asia Researcher, said in a statement.

BIZARRE RITUALS AND WEAPONS

 

 Asahara, 63, a pudgy, partially blind yoga instructor, was sentenced to hang in 2004 on 13 charges, including the subway gas attacks and other crimes that killed at least a dozen people.

He pleaded not guilty and never testified, but muttered and made incoherent remarks in court during the eight years of his trial. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2006.

In all, 13 cult members were sentenced to death during more than 20 years of trials, which came to an end in January 2018.

 Asahara, who founded Aum in 1987, said that the United States would attack Japan and turn it into a nuclear wasteland. He also said he had traveled forward in time to 2006 and talked to people then about what World War Three had been like.

At its peak, the cult had at least 10,000 members in Japan and overseas, including graduates of some of Japan’s top universities.

Some members lived in a commune-like complex Asahara established at the foot of Mount Fuji, where the group studied his teachings, practiced bizarre rituals and gathered an arsenal of weapons – including sarin.

The cult also used sarin in 1994, releasing the gas in the central city of Matsumoto on a summer night in an attempt to kill three judges set to rule on it.

That attack, which involved a refrigerator truck releasing the gas to be dispersed by the wind through a neighborhood, failed to kill the judges but killed eight other people and injured hundreds. </s> A car has rammed pedestrians on a busy Tokyo street that was closed to traffic for New Year festivities.The car, which was driving in a wrong lane, bulldozed into revelers in Japan's capital city as it swerved into a shopping street bustling with people just after midnight, NHK reported. Hundreds of people were heading to a nearby shrine to pray for good luck in the new year.Eight people were injured in the incident, including one male university student who was taken to hospital in critical condition. Teenagers and adults in their 50s are among the victims.The driver was identified as 21-year-old Kazuhiro Kusakabe.Kusakabe repeatedly changed his story when questioned about his motives. Initially, the 21-year-old claimed that he had carried out a terrorist attack. However, he then backtracked on that, saying instead that he had attempted a murder. Shortly after, Kusakabe again changed his tune, claiming that he rammed the people in response to executions. It is unclear if he was referring to the system of capital punishment that exists in Japan, or to specific executions.Japan executed 15 people in 2018, its highest number in one year since 2008. Death penalties are carried out with no advance warning to an inmate, his or her family or their legal representative. Earlier this year, Japan executed 13 members of the Aum Shinrikyo sect that had carried out a sarin chemical attack on Tokyo subway in 1995.Last week, Japan executed two prisoners who had been on death row since 2004, charged with robbery and murder. </s> Japan on Thursday executed the last members of the cult sentenced to death for their role in the fatal 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, weeks after the group's leader was hanged.

The execution of the six Aum Shinrikyo members, years after they were put on death row, draws a line under the horrific attack which shocked the world and prompted national soul-searching over the group and its crimes.

"Today the state executed six people," Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said at a press conference.

In all, 13 Aum members, including the cult's near-blind leader Shoko Asahara, were on death row for crimes including the 1995 sarin attack on Tokyo's subway.

Local media said authorities wanted the death sentences against the Aum members to be carried out before Japan's emperor abdicates next year, when a new imperial era will begin.

Since the Aum's crimes were committed during the Heisei era of the current emperor, authorities wanted the executions complete before the new era begins, local media reported.

Some of the Aum's victims said it would be hard to simply move on.

"With the 13 members executed, perhaps the case is closed from the point of view of criminal justice," Shizue Takahashi, whose husband was killed in the subway attack, told reporters.

"(But) the damage done to the victims continues even after the executions. I find it very hard." </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Gao's first killing took place in 1988, he was only caught years later in 2016

A Chinese serial killer convicted of murdering 11 girls and women between 1988 and 2002 has been executed.

Gao Chengyong, dubbed "Jack the Ripper" by Chinese media, followed his victims home before robbing, raping and murdering them. He cut their throats and mutilated their bodies.

Gao, a married father of two, was arrested in 2016 at the grocery store he ran in Baiyin, Gansu province.

Police managed to trace the 53-year-old through a series of DNA tests.

A DNA breakthrough

Gao's first murder was in May 1988, the year his son was born.

A 23-year-old woman was found in Baiyin with 26 stab wounds to her body.

Subsequent murders followed a similar pattern, with the killer often targeting young women who lived alone.

Gao also cut off parts of his victim's reproductive organs, according to the Beijing Youth Daily. His youngest victim was eight years old.

Women in Baiyin would not walk alone in the streets without being accompanied by male relatives or friends after the spate of attacks.

The killings stopped in 2002 but it was only years later that a breakthrough came, when Gao's uncle was arrested for a minor crime.

He gave a DNA sample which police then linked to the crimes, determining they must have been committed by a relative - which was later confirmed to be Gao.

He was sentenced to death last year. The court in Baiyin called his actions "despicable".

His execution on Thursday was announced on the court's Weibo account.

It is not clear how the execution was carried out, though death sentences in China are mostly carried out by lethal injection or a firing squad. </s> A serial killer dubbed China’s “Jack the Ripper” has been executed three decades after the first in a string of gruesome murders targeting women and girls.

Agence France-Presse reports that Gao Chengyong, 54, was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of raping, mutilating and murdering 11 female victims between 1988 and 2002.

The court that sentenced him in March 2018 announced his execution Thursday on China’s Twitter-like social media platform, Weibo, according to AFP.

Gao reportedly targeted young women who wore red, following them home and sometimes disemboweling them. In some cases, their reproductive organs were removed, according to local media reports.

The murders took place in China’s Gansu region and neighboring Inner Mongolia. Gao’s youngest victim was eight years old.

Upon his conviction, the court said on Weibo that “many of his female victims’ corpses were damaged and violated,” according to AFP.

“The motives of the defendant’s crimes were despicable, his methods extremely cruel, the nature of the acts vile and the details of the crimes serious,” the court’s statement continued.

Police had been searching for the killer for years before his arrest in 2016.
Japan carries out the first executions this year, hanging Koichi Shoji, 64, who killed two women in 2001, and serial killer Yasunori Suzuki, 50, who killed three women between 2004 and 2005 in Fukuoka Prefecture.