Photo/Illutration Buttons on the yellow wall are used to hang inmates in the adjoining execution room at the Tokyo Detention House. (Pool)

Japan carried out no executions in 2023 for the first time in three years.

Currently, there are 106 people on death row in Japan. Three of the inmates died and three death sentences were finalized this year, according to the Justice Ministry.

The last execution was on July 26, 2022, when Tomohiro Kato was hanged. He was convicted of murdering seven people by driving into them or stabbing them in a random attack in Tokyo’s Akihabara district in 2008.

Yoshihisa Furukawa was justice minister at the time of the execution.

His three successors, including incumbent Ryuji Koizumi, who took office in September, have not signed any execution papers.

Under the Criminal Procedure Law, the justice minister is required, in principle, to order the execution within six months after a death sentence is finalized.

But the average incarceration period for death row inmates is about 15 years and two months, reflecting the time required to review finalized death sentences and respond to requests for retrials.

According to Amnesty International Japan, an international human rights organization, 144 of the 199 countries and regions around the world had abolished or suspended capital punishment by the end of 2022.

Japan is among 55 countries that maintain capital punishment.

According to Amnesty International’s report, “Death Sentences and Executions,” at least 883 executions were carried out in 20 countries in 2022.

By method of execution, hanging is conducted in Japan, Egypt, Singapore and other countries; lethal injection is administered in the United States, China and Vietnam; firing squads are used in Afghanistan, China and other countries; and beheading is conducted in Saudi Arabia.

(This article was written by Kazumichi Kubota and Ryuichiro Fukuoka.)

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