Tokyo: Japan on Tuesday hanged three prisoners, its first executions in two years.
While one of them was Yasutaka Fujishiro, 65, who used a hammer and knife to kill his 80-year-old aunt, two cousins and four others in 2004, the other two were 54-year-old Tomoaki Takanezawa, who killed two clerks at an arcade game parlour in 2003, and his accomplice Mitsunori Onogawa, 44.
Japan is one of the few developed countries to keep the death penalty and public support for capital punishment remains high despite international criticism, especially from rights groups.
More than 100 people are currently on death row, most of them for cases of mass murder. Executions are carried out by hanging, usually long after sentencing.
The executions were also the first under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who took office in October.
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