Japan hanged 58-year-old Sunao Takami on Friday morning for a 2009 arson attack at a pachinko parlor in Osaka, according to the AP News report. The execution is the first carried out under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration, according to Japantimes.
Japan Executes 2009 Osaka Arsonist Sunao Takami
Takami was convicted of pouring gasoline and throwing a lit match to ignite the crowded gaming establishment near his home in July 2009. The resulting fire killed four customers and one worker, and injured 10 other people. He turned himself in to authorities the following day. An Osaka District Court sentenced Takami to death in 2011 for murder, attempted murder, and arson. His defense team argued that he suffered from a mental disorder with limited criminal responsibility, but the Supreme Court rejected his appeal and finalized his death penalty in 2016.
Justice Minister Defends Hanging and Execution Secrecy
Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi told a news conference that he ordered the execution after careful and thorough considerations. It caused extremely serious outcomes and dealt a major shock and fear to the society,
Hiraguchi said, adding that the victims faced unimaginable pain and fear while the injured were forced to live with long-term effects.
According to CNA, the broadcaster NHK reported that Takami was hanged in Osaka. In line with standard Japanese practice, Takami was only informed of his impending execution on Friday morning. Hiraguchi defended the practice of keeping execution dates secret until the morning of the hanging, stating that notifying prisoners beforehand could destabilize their emotional state and cause undue suffering.
Hiraguchi also stated he has no intention of changing current disclosure practices, arguing that revealing additional details would disturb the mental state of death-row inmates. He defended hanging as a valid execution method, noting past Supreme Court decisions that determined hanging is no more cruel than lethal injection, electrocution, or shooting. Responding to criticism that Friday’s hanging took place during a parliamentary recess to avoid public debate, Hiraguchi denied any intentional timing.
Capital Punishment Debate and Death Row Statistics
Following Takami’s execution, Japan now has 100 people remaining on death row, which includes 43 individuals seeking retrials. The country’s use of capital punishment has faced growing international criticism, as a majority of the global community has abolished the practice. Japan and the United States remain the only two nations within the Group of Seven industrialized countries that continue to execute prisoners, alongside other G7 members Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, as detailed by The Independent.
Calls for abolition and increased transparency have intensified following the 2024 acquittal of Iwao Hakamada, who was the world’s longest-serving death-row inmate. However, Hiraguchi cited government surveys showing that a vast majority of the Japanese public supports the death penalty as an unavoidable option.
The previous execution in Japan took place in June 2025, when the country hanged Takahiro Shiraishi, a man known as the Twitter killer
who was convicted of murdering and dismembering nine people in an apartment near Tokyo in 2017.
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