---
title: "Japan hangs 'Twitter killer' in first execution since 2022"
description: "TOKYO, June 27 (Reuters) - Japan executed a man on Friday who killed nine people after contacting them on social media, the first use of capital punishment in the country in nearly three years."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Newsdeck"
author: "Reuters"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/reuters/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-06-27-japan-hangs-twitter-killer-in-first-execution-since-2022/"
published: "2025-06-27T04:39:07"
updated: "2025-06-27T04:39:08"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 237
---

# Japan hangs 'Twitter killer' in first execution since 2022

> TOKYO, June 27 (Reuters) - Japan executed a man on Friday who killed nine people after contacting them on social media, the first use of capital punishment in the country in nearly three years.

By Reuters · Published 27 June 2025, 06:39 SAST · Updated 27 June 2025, 06:39 SAST

## Key points
- In a grim twist of fate, Japan's "Twitter killer," Takahiro Shiraishi, has met his end by hanging, serving as a chilling reminder that social media can sometimes lead to the darkest of connections, while the debate over capital punishment continues to hang in the balance.
- Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the "Twitter killer," has been sentenced to death for the 2017 murders of eight women and one man in Japan.
- Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki approved the execution, citing Shiraishi's "extremely selfish" motives and the societal shock caused by his crimes.
- This marks Japan's first execution under Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's administration and follows a recent acquittal of a man wrongfully convicted and on death row for nearly 60 years.
- Human rights groups criticize Japan's death penalty practices, which involve notifying inmates just hours before execution, with 105 inmates currently on death row.

## Content

By Kantaro Komiya

Takahiro Shiraishi had been [sentenced to death](https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AKBN28P2G9&linkedFromStory=true) for his 2017 strangling and dismembering of eight women and one man in his apartment in Zama city in Kanagawa near Tokyo. He was dubbed the "Twitter killer" as he contacted victims via the social media platform.

Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who authorised Shiraishi's hanging, said he made the decision after careful examination, taking into account the convict's "extremely selfish" motive for crimes that "caused great shock andunrest to society."

It followed the [execution](https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AT9N2Y4024&linkedFromStory=true) in July 2022 of a man who went on a stabbing rampage in Tokyo's shopping district Akihabara in 2008.

It was also the first time a death penalty was carried out since Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government was inaugurated last October.

In September last year, a Japanese court acquitted Iwao Hakamada, who had [spent](https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL4N3L80MQ&linkedFromStory=true) the world's longest time on death row after a wrongful conviction for crimes committed nearly 60 years ago.

[Capital punishment](https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AKBN1JW0HQ&linkedFromStory=true) is carried out by hanging in Japan and prisoners are notified of their execution hours before it is carried out, which has long been decried by human rights groups for the stress it puts on death-row prisoners.

"It is not appropriate to abolish the death penalty while these violent crimes are still being committed," Suzuki told a press conference. There are currently 105 death row inmates in Japan, he added.

(Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Stephen Coates)