Japan Executes Arsonist Who Killed 5 in 2009 Osaka Pachinko Fire
- On Friday, August 21, Japan executed Sunao Takami for a 2009 arson attack on an Osaka pachinko parlor that killed five people, authorities said.
- The hanging is Japan's first since Takahiro Shiraishi, the "Twitter killer," was executed in June 2025; Takami doused the parlor with petrol before igniting it.
- There are around 100 inmates on death row, though Japanese law requires executions within six months of final verdict; inmates learn of execution only on the morning of death.
- In a 2024 government survey, 83 per cent saw the death penalty as "unavoidable," though support for abolition rose to 17 per cent from 9 per cent five years earlier.
- Japan and the United States remain the only Group of Seven countries using capital punishment; campaigners criticize the system for "hostage justice" and cite wrongful convictions like Iwao Hakamada's.
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79 Articles
A 58-year-old man has been executed in Japan, which was announced by Minister of Justice Hiraguchi in Tokyo.
This is the first execution in Japan since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi came to power last October. The previous one, that of Takahiro Shiraishi, the "Twitter Killer", who had murdered and dismembered nine people, was back in June 2025. Sunao Takami, the 58-year-old man executed on Friday, had watered a pachinko room - a sort of vertical billiard game using metal balls - in Osaka, near his home, before setting fire to it, killing four customers…
After more than a year, the Tokyo government has again executed a death sentence, the first execution since the entry into office of Prime Minister Takaichi.
Japan executes man convicted of setting fire that killed 5 at Osaka pachinko parlor
Japan executes man convicted of setting fire that killed 5 at Osaka pachinko parlor Click this link for the original source of this article. Author: New York Post This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.offthepress.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered...
In Japan, a man who doused a gambling hall with gasoline and burned five peopleSunao Takami was executed by hanging for setting fire to a pachinko parlor in Osaka in 2009. This is the first execution in Japan in more than a year.
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