Japan carries out first execution in more than a year
Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi announced the execution in Tokyo; the prisoner was convicted for a 2009 arson in Osaka that killed five people.
Japan carried out an execution on 21 August 2026, marking the first time the state has put a prisoner to death in just over a year, Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said in Tokyo.
The executed prisoner was a 58-year-old man who had been sentenced to death for the 2009 arson attack at a pachinko parlour in Osaka that killed five people. Authorities said the sentence was carried out following the formal procedures for capital punishment.
Background and recent history
This is the first execution since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office in October last year (October 2025). The previous execution took place in June of last year, when a serial killer convicted of murdering nine young people—and accused of sexual abuse of the victims and robbery—was executed.
Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy, remains one of the few advanced industrial nations to keep capital punishment in its legal system. The island nation and the United States are the only two Group of Seven (G7) members that still carry out executions.
Public opinion in Japan has remained broadly supportive: a government survey in 2024 found that 83 percent of respondents described the death penalty as “inevitable,” while the share of those who favoured abolition within five years rose from 9 to 17 percent. Official figures indicate that roughly 100 convicted prisoners are currently held in execution wings in Japanese prisons.
Photo: press material from the event
