Japan on Friday carried out its first execution since 2022, hanging Takahiro Shiraishi—infamously dubbed the “Twitter Killer”—for the brutal murder of nine people in 2017. The 33-year-old was convicted of luring eight women and one man through social media, before strangling and dismembering them in his apartment in Zama city, near Tokyo.
The execution marks the first use of capital punishment since Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s government took office in October, and the first death sentence to be carried out in Japan in almost three years.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who signed the execution order, described Shiraishi’s crimes as having an “extremely selfish” motive, noting the “great shock and unrest” the murders caused in Japanese society. He emphasised that the decision to proceed with the hanging was made after a thorough and deliberate review of the case.
Shiraishi’s crimes shocked the nation. He used Twitter to contact people expressing suicidal thoughts, claiming he could help them die painlessly or even die with them. Instead, he lured them to his home and killed them.
Capital punishment in Japan is conducted by hanging, often with little notice. Inmates are typically informed of their execution just hours before it occurs, a practice long criticised by human rights groups for its psychological toll on death row prisoners.
Justice Minister Suzuki defended the continued use of the death penalty, saying, “It is not appropriate to abolish the death penalty while these violent crimes are still being committed.” According to Suzuki, Japan currently has 105 inmates on death row.
The execution follows the July 2022 hanging of a man responsible for a 2008 mass stabbing in Tokyo’s Akihabara shopping district. It also comes less than a year after a Japanese court acquitted Iwao Hakamada, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate, following a wrongful conviction for crimes committed nearly 60 years ago.
Shiraishi’s execution reignites debate around Japan’s capital punishment policy—one of the few developed nations that still carries out executions.
Melissa Enoch
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