Japan has hanged two convicted murderers, the first time that the death penalty has been enacted in the country this year.
All executions in Japan are conducted in secret, with no warning given to the condemned, their families, or legal teams.
Japan and the United States are the only two ‘first world’ countries where the death penalty still exists, though Japan rarely implements it. When it does, such fate is usually reserved for those convicted of murdering multiple innocent people.
Japan’s death penalty rules came into the spotlight in 2018, after thirteen members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult were hanged. The group had been found guilty of the 1995 Sarin gas attack in Tokyo, which killed 12 people and injured many more.