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Thread: Japan Capital Punishment News

  1. #151
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Japan minister quits over execution remark

    AP

    Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delayed his departure for three upcoming summits in Southeast Asia on Friday to sack and replace his justice minister, who was widely criticized over a remark he made about capital punishment.

    Justice Minister Yasuhiro Hanashi told reporters he submitted his resignation to Kishida on Friday, two days after he commented at a party meeting that his low-profile job only made the noon news when he used his “hanko” stamp to approve death penalties in the morning.

    The remark quickly sparked criticism from the opposition as well as within Kishida’s governing party, which is already mired in a controversy over its decades-long ties to the Unification Church, a South Korea-based religious group accused in Japan of improper recruitment and brainwashing of adherents into making huge donations.

    At least two other members of Kishida’s scandal-prone Cabinet are facing allegations of accounting irregularities.

    “I carelessly used the term death penalty as an example” and made people and ministry officials “feel uncomfortable,” Hanashi said. “I decided to resign to express my apology to the people and my determination to restart my political career.”

    Japan has faced international criticism for continuing to use capital punishment and for its lack of transparency.

    Hanashi said he had consulted with Kishida over the past two days about his possible resignation and was advised to do his best to apologize and explain.

    “I apologize and retract my remark that faced media reports that created an impression that I was taking my responsibility lightly,” he said Thursday. He made another apology on Friday and denied any intention to resign.

    But media reports later revealed that he had made similar remarks at other meetings over the past three months.

    Kishida, who has a reputation as indecisive, denied that he took Hanashi’s comments lightly.

    He later told reporters that he accepted Hanashi’s resignation because his “careless remark” damaged public trust in justice policies and could stall parliamentary discussions of key issues, including support for people with financial and family troubles caused by the Unification Church.

    Kishida said he appointed former Agriculture Minister Ken Saito, a Harvard-educated former trade ministry bureaucrat, as Hanashi’s replacement.

    Kishida was forced to urgently deal with the problem before leaving on a nine-day trip to attend the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia, the Group of 20 meetings in Indonesia and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok.

    Hanashi, a member of Kishida’s own faction within the governing Liberal Democratic Party, was in office only three months and is the second minister to be dismissed since the prime minister shuffled his Cabinet in August in a failed attempt to turn around his government’s plunging popularity.

    Last month, Daishiro Yamagiwa resigned as economy minister after facing criticism for failing to explain to his links to the Unification Church.

    “Prime Minister Kishida is the one who should make a firm judgment … and his failure to do so more quickly is now raising a question about his capacity as a leader,” Hiroshi Hoshi, a political journalist and commentator, said on TBS television.

    The governing party’s church links surfaced after the July assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Its ties to the church go back to Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who supported its anti-communist stance and helped it take root in Japan.

    The police investigation of Abe’s assassination also shed light on problems affecting family members of church followers, including poverty and neglect.

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/j...ecution-remark
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  2. #152
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Japan death-row inmates seek end to hanging as inhumane execution

    KYODO NEWS

    Three death-row inmates in Osaka filed a suit against the state on Tuesday, seeking an end to the practice of execution by hanging, claiming the method was inhumane under international conventions.

    All three plaintiffs have been detained at Osaka Detention House for over 10 years, of which two have additionally been in the process of appealing their sentences.

    The plaintiffs' attorney Kyoji Mizutani said the lawsuit is aimed at "highlighting the reality of capital punishment" in Japan and creating public conversation on whether the practice should continue.

    The Justice Ministry said it could not comment as it has not received the complaint.

    The inmates, whose names, ages and genders have been withheld, are also seeking damages worth 33 million yen ($237,000).

    The plaintiffs claim that hanging as the sole means of execution under Japan's Penal Code is inhumane, that it causes unbearable pain and violates international covenants on human rights.

    The inmates also said living in fear over a long period of time -- due to their not knowing when they will be executed -- has led to mental agony.

    The complaint contends that the government's withholding of information such as the manner of executions hinders public debate on the pros and cons of the death penalty.

    https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2...execution.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  3. #153
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    Death row inmate Uematsu, who killed and injured 45 people at a facility for the disabled…Photo of “horrifying tattoos” of Hannya on his back and a tiger on his shoulder.

    The death penalty was once again confirmed.

    On December 12, the Supreme Court rejected a special appeal by the defense of death-row inmate Sei Uematsu, who killed or injured 45 people at Tsukui Yamayuri En (Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture), a facility for the mentally disabled. The Tokyo High Court’s decision to withdraw the appeal was valid.

    The Yokohama District Court sentenced Uematsu to death in March 2008. Despite an immediate appeal by the defense, Uematsu withdrew his appeal on his own initiative, and his death sentence became final. The death sentence became final. However, the defense argued that “Uematsu withdrew his death sentence in order to escape the pain of the trial because he was in an abnormal state of mind. The Tokyo High Court invalidated the withdrawal of the appeal,” said a reporter from the society section of a national newspaper.

    The incident occurred in July 2004. In the middle of the night, death row inmate Uematsu, a former employee, broke into the Yamauri En and stabbed and wounded residents with a knife and a kitchen knife. When the Tsukui Fire Department responded to the report, the floor was covered in blood.

    Uematsu broke through a window and entered the facility. He used five knives to stab the residents, killing 19 and injuring 26 in an unprecedented tragedy. When the fire department officers and police arrived, it was said that anguished cries of ‘uuuu……’ could be heard from everywhere.

    After graduating from public elementary and junior high schools in Sagamihara, Uematsu went on to a private high school in Tokyo. It was after he left high school and entered Teikyo University that his behavior became strange. In an interview with “FRIDAY” (August 12, 2004 issue), Mr. A, a childhood friend, said the following.

    The things she wore became more and more flashy. At his coming-of-age ceremony, he showed up in a reddish-purple montsuki hakama. He also told us that he was ‘doing law-abiding herbs. He also said that he didn’t join any clubs at university and that he had apprenticed himself to a tattoo artist in Sagamihara. ‘Do you have tattoos?’ I asked him, “Do you have a tattoo? On his back was the face of Hannya, and on both shoulders were carved pictures of carp and tigers (see related image).

    Uematsu’s behavior in court was also controversial: at a jury trial in Yokohama District Court in January 2008, he suddenly became violent.

    It was right after the defense had entered a plea of not guilty. Uematsu suddenly exclaimed, “I apologize deeply to everyone! he exclaimed. He brought both wrists to his mouth and made a gesture as if he was going to bite them. Four prison guards told him to “Stop it! he was still flailing his arms and legs for a while. Finally, the presiding judge ordered the court to dismiss the case and the trial was temporarily suspended. It was not until the afternoon that the trial resumed.

    Uematsu was a death-row inmate who had committed an unprecedented murder. The Supreme Court’s rejection of a special appeal finally brought the case to a conclusion.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...cai?li=BBorjTa
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  4. #154
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Woman on Death Row Dies in Japan

    Tokyo (Jiji Press)--Japanese death-row inmate Miyuki Ueta, convicted of robbery and murder over the mysterious deaths of two men in Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, in 2009, has died, the Justice Ministry said Sunday.

    Ueta, 49, a former bar employee, lost consciousness while eating a meal at the Hiroshima detention house in the western Japan city of Hiroshima on Saturday evening.

    She was confirmed dead after she was sent to hospital. Ueta died of suffocation, according to the ministry.

    https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj20...-in-japan.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  5. #155
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Retrial for world's longest-serving death row inmate

    BBC

    Iwao Hakamada, now 87, is the world's longest-serving death row inmate, according to Amnesty International.

    He was sentenced to death in 1968 for murdering his boss, the man's wife and their two children in 1966.

    The former professional boxer confessed after 20 days of interrogation during which he said he was beaten. He later retracted the confession in court.

    Rights groups have criticised Japan's reliance on confessions, which they say police often obtain by force.

    In the retrial, judges will rule on whether DNA from blood stains found on clothing alleged to have been worn by the killer match Mr Hakamada's.

    His lawyers had argued that it did not and that the evidence was fabricated.

    Iwao Hakamada was arrested and accused of robbing and killing his employer and his family at a miso or soybean processing factory in Shizuoka west of Tokyo in 1966. They were found stabbed to death after a fire.

    In 2014, Hakamada was released from jail and granted a retrial by a district court, which found investigators could have planted evidence. The decision was then overturned by Tokyo's high court.

    But, following an appeal, Supreme Court judges directed the high court to reconsider, leading to the ruling that a retrial should now go ahead.

    "I was waiting for this day for 57 years and it has come," said Hakamada's sister Hideko, 90, who has spent years campaigning on her brother's behalf.

    "Finally a weight has been lifted from my shoulders."

    Iwao Hakamada's family says his mental health has deteriorated after decades in jail.

    Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the US that still uses capital punishment.

    Amnesty welcomed the retrial as a "long-overdue chance to deliver some justice".

    "Hakamada's conviction was based on a forced 'confession' and there are serious doubts about the other evidence used against him," the group's Japan director Hideaki Nakagawa said.

    The process for a retrial could take years if a special appeal is filed, however, and lawyers have been protesting against this system.

    Lawyers in Japan also welcomed the ruling, but called on prosecutors to "swiftly start the retrial process without issuing a special appeal to the Supreme Court".

    "We cannot afford any further delay to remedy Mr Hakamada, who has an advanced age of 87 and suffers mental and physical conditions after 47 years of physical restraint," said Japan Federation of Bar Associations head Motoji Kobayashi.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...TMg?li=BBnbcA1
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  6. #156
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Trial opens in Japan in the 2019 animation studio arson that killed 36 people. Suspect pleads guilty

    AP

    The suspect in a 2019 arson attack at an animation studio in Japan went on trial Tuesday, pleading guilty to the murder of 36 people. The trial for the deadliest crime in decades in the country had been long delayed to give the defendant time to recover from serious burns sustained in the attack.

    Shinji Aoba, 45, is charged with multiple counts of murder, attempted murder and arson after he stormed into Kyoto Animation’s No. 1 studio on July 18, 2019, and set it on fire. The blaze killed 36 people and left more than 30 others badly burned or injured.

    Aoba appeared before the Kyoto District Court in a wheelchair and wearing a surgical mask, Japanese media reported. Prosecutors said he carried out the crime in “revenge,” thinking the Kyoto Animation had stolen one of his novels, which he had submitted for a company contest, reports said.

    In his statement, Aoba said the attack was all he could think about at that time but that he never thought so many people would die. He now thinks he went too far, he said, according to the reports.

    Aoba nearly died in the attack, suffering severe burns on 90% of his body, including on the face, torso and limbs. He was unconscious for weeks and treated for 10 months at a hospital specializing in burns, where he underwent several skin transplant operations that saved him, police said.

    He was last publicly seen on a stretcher at the time of his arrest in May 2020, after the 10-months hospitalization. Prosecutors waited another six months for the results of a psychiatric evaluation before pressing formal charges. They said he was mentally fit to stand trial, while Aoba’s defense lawyers argued he is mentally unfit to be held criminally responsible.

    About 70 people were working inside the studio in southern Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital, at the time of the attack. One of the survivors, an animator, has said he saw a black mushroom cloud rising from downstairs, then scorching heat came and he jumped from a window of the three-story building gasping for air.

    Experts say they believe many died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

    The company, founded in 1981 and better known as KyoAni, made a mega-hit anime series about high school girls and trained aspirants to the craft.

    The attack shocked Japan and drew an outpouring of grief from anime fans worldwide.

    On Tuesday, 500 people lined up outside of the court to vie for 35 public seats available in the courtroom for the first hearing. There will be 30 more trial sessions this year before a verdict, expected in January.

    Japanese media have described Aoba as being thought of as a trouble-maker who repeatedly changed contract jobs and apartments. Neighbors said he often quarreled with other residents in various apartment buildings he lived in near Tokyo. He served prison time for theft at a convenience store in 2012.

    The fire was Japan’s deadliest since 2001, when a blaze in Tokyo’s congested Kabukicho entertainment district killed 44 people. It was the country’s worst known case of arson in modern times.

    https://apnews.com/article/japan-kyo...5d88bf03054d6e
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  7. #157
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Man given death penalty for murder, arson in Japan

    By Kyodo News

    A Japanese court sentenced a 21-year-old man to death on Thursday for the 2021 murder of two and arson, in the first case of capital punishment being given to an offender who was a minor at the time of the crime but whose name has been revealed under a 2022 revision of the Juveniles Law.

    The defendant, Yuki Endo, was 19 at the time of the attack. The law change in April 2022 allows media to reveal the identities of 18- and 19-year-old offenders once they are indicted.

    The media was previously prohibited from reporting names, ages, occupations, residences and appearances or publishing photographs of minors under 20.

    Endo was accused of stabbing the 55-year-old father and 50-year-old mother of a female acquaintance at their home in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Oct. 12, 2021, causing them to bleed to death.

    He was also charged with injuring the acquaintance's younger sister and setting fire to the house, according to the indictment. The acquaintance was not injured.

    Under Japan's Penal Code, arson of a dwelling in which a person is present can also be punished by death.

    Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, saying the defendant was fully accountable in light of his deliberateness and planning of the criminal acts. They said age was not a reason for the court to avoid giving a death penalty.

    The defense team argued that the defendant had a diminished capacity at the time of the attack, adding his behavior could be corrected, they said.

    https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/01...arson-in-japan
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  8. #158
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    Edited:

    Man sentenced to death for arson attack at Japanese anime studio that killed 36

    By ABC News

    A Japanese court has sentenced a man to death after finding him guilty of murder and other crimes over a shocking arson attack on an anime studio in Kyoto that killed 36 people.

    The Kyoto District Court said it found the defendant, Shinji Aoba, mentally capable to face punishment for the crimes and announced his capital punishment after a recess in a two-part session on Thursday.

    Aoba stormed into Kyoto Animation's Number 1 studio on July 18, 2019, and set it on fire.

    About 70 people were working inside the studio in southern Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, at the time of the attack.

    One of the survivors said he saw a black cloud rising from downstairs, then scorching heat came and he jumped from a window of the three storey building gasping for air.

    Many of the victims were believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

    More than 30 other people were badly burned or injured.

    A number of victims were found on a spiral stairwell leading to the roof, suggesting they were overcome as they desperately tried to escape.

    "There was a person who jumped from the second floor … but we couldn't rush to help because the fire was so strong," one woman told local media at the time.

    "It was like I was looking at hell."

    For families of the deceased, the pain of their loss remains excruciating to this day.

    "I should have told her not to go to work that morning," the mother of 49-year-old Naomi Ishida told the Mainichi Shimbun daily this week.

    "Even if he gets the death penalty, Naomi and others won't come back. I feel empty," said the woman, whose husband died a month before the first hearing.

    Aoba plotted train station attack

    Judge Keisuke Masuda said Aoba had wanted to be a novelist but was unsuccessful and so he sought revenge, thinking that Kyoto Animation had stolen novels he submitted as part of a company contest, according to local media.

    NHK national television also reported that Aoba, who was out of work and struggling financially after repeatedly changing jobs, had plotted a separate attack on a train station north of Tokyo a month before the arson attack on the animation studio.

    Aoba plotted the attacks after studying past criminal cases involving arson, the court said in the ruling, noting the process showed that Aoba had premeditated the crime and was mentally capable.

    "The attack that instantly turned the studio into hell and took the precious lives of 36 people, caused them indescribable pain," the judge said, according to NHK.

    Aoba, who was arrested near the scene after the attack, faced five charges including murder, attempted murder and arson.

    Inside the courtroom packed with family members of the victims, one person cried and covered their eyes as the judge spoke, NHK reported.

    "I didn't think so many people would die, and now I think I went too far," Aoba told the Kyoto District Court when the trial opened in September, reports said at the time.

    About 90 per cent of Aoba's body was severely burned in the fire, and he was hospitalised for 10 months before his arrest in May 2020.

    The 45-year-old reportedly needed 12 operations and was unconscious for weeks after his fatal attack.

    For his sentencing, he appeared in court in a wheelchair.

    Aoba's defence lawyers had argued he was mentally unfit to be held criminally responsible.

    Japanese media have described Aoba as being thought of as a troublemaker who repeatedly changed contract jobs and apartments and quarrelled with neighbours.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-...udio/103390752
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
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    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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