Japan carries out first execution in 14 months under PM Takaichi

A 58-year-old man on death row convicted for killing five people after he set a pachinko parlor on fire in 2009 in the city of Osaka, has been executed on August 21 morning.

Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. on August 21, The Japan Times reports.

This is the first time in 14 months that there was an execution in Japan and the first under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration.

Sunao Takami was convicted for pouring gasoline and setting the pachinko parlor near his home on fire in July 2009, killing four customers and a worker at the parlor and injuring 10 others. He was arrested the following day after he turned himself in.

The last execution in the country was in June 2025 when Takahiro Shiraishi, a death-row inmate convicted of killing nine people he met on social media in the city of Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, was executed.

By Vafa Guliyeva