Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa told reporters that Tomohiro Kato was hanged at the Tokyo detention center earlier Tuesday. Japan has retained the death penalty despite growing international criticism. Furukawa said the death penalty was a justifiable response to ongoing heinous and violent crime and its abolition was not appropriate at this point. Furukawa said Kato had fully prepared to commit the mass killings – “a horrific act that led to extremely serious consequences and had a significant impact on society”. In the attack, Kato drove his truck down a street in the electronics shopping district of Akihabara, plowing into a crowd of people and killing three pedestrians in June 2008. He then got out of the vehicle and stabbed four people to death. Injured or injured 10 others. Surveillance footage broadcast by national broadcaster NHK later showed Kato buying hunting knives two days before the attack, laughing with a shop worker and at times making stabs with his hands. Media reports also said that he had posted on Internet message boards several distressing messages and warnings that he was planning to kill people in a mass attack. Kato, 39, was sentenced to death in 2011 by the Tokyo District Court and the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in 2015. Furukawa denied Tuesday’s hanging was related to the shooting death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this month, which shocked the nation known for strict gun controls and a low crime rate. Tuesday’s hanging was the second under the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who took office in October. Japan now has 107 people on death row, including 61 seeking retrials, Furukawa said. Japan and the US are the only two countries in the Group of Seven advanced countries that retain the death penalty. A Japanese government survey found that the vast majority of the public support the executions. Executions are carried out in extreme secrecy in Japan, where prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged. Since 2007, Japan has begun releasing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but disclosures are still limited. Three prisoners were hanged in 2021. In 2018, Japan hanged 15 people, including the guru of the Aum Shinrikyo cult and 12 former followers convicted of the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 13 people and sickened thousands. The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
