Japan executes man who killed five in gaming parlour fire - BBC News

This is the first time since June 2025 that the country has enacted capital punishment.

Image source, Getty ImagesByKelly Ng and Kurumi Mori, Tokyo correspondentPublished21 August 2026, 03:49 BSTJapan has executed a man who killed five people in a gaming parlour fire in 2009, making this the first time in more than a year that the country has enacted the death sentence.

Sunao Takami, 58, had doused the pachinko gaming parlour near his home in Osaka with gasoline and set it alight, killing four customers and one employee.

A six-member jury and a panel of three judges rejected the defence's argument that Takami was mentally ill at the time of the crime, and sentenced him to hang in 2011.

Japan and the United States are the only G7 countries that still impose capital punishment, with death row prisoners in Japan typically being notified of their hanging just a few hours in advance.

"We ordered the execution after careful and thorough consideration," Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said on Friday.