Japan has executed Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the “Twitter killer,” who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online. This is Japan’s first execution since 2022.
Shiraishi killed nine mostly young women, aged 15 to 26, whom he contacted on the social media platform Twitter (now called X). He lured them to his apartment near Tokyo in 2017, where he murdered and dismembered them. He admitted to all the crimes.
Japan’s Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said Shiraishi’s crimes included robbery, rape, murder, and destruction of corpses. The victims were beaten, strangled, and mutilated, with body parts hidden in boxes or dumped as trash.
Japan and the United States are the only Group of Seven (G7) countries that still use the death penalty. Public support for it is strong in Japan; a 2024 survey showed 83% of respondents think the death penalty is “unavoidable.”
Shiraishi was hanged on Friday, as executions in Japan are carried out by hanging. The law requires executions to happen within six months after all appeals end, but in practice many inmates wait years in solitary confinement.
Japan has faced criticism for its secretive death penalty system, where prisoners are told of their execution only at the last moment, often early in the morning.
The country’s last major executions included Shoko Asahara and members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in 2018. The cult was responsible for deadly sarin gas attacks in Tokyo in 1995.
