Japan executes two inmates for multiple murders

Tokyo, Dec 19 (IANS) Japan on Tuesday executed two inmates who were sentenced to death for multiple murders in the 1990s, the Justice Ministry said.

The first of the death-row inmates executed on Tuesday, Teruhiko Seki, 44, was sentenced for killing a four-member family in Ichikawa in 1992, when he was still a minor, reports Efe news.

In addition to these murders, Seki also committed several other crimes, including rapes and robberies, in which several people were injured, according to information provided by the justice ministry.

The other prisoner, Kiyoshi Matsui, 69, was given the death penalty for killing his girlfriend and her parents in February 1994 with a hammer in Gunma prefecture.

Both death row inmates were executed in Tokyo, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in a press conference, describing the cases as "extremely cruel".

Following Tuesday's executions, 123 prisoners remain sentenced to death in Japan pending the enforcement of their sentences, 94 of whom have requested a review of their sentences, Kamikawa said.

The minister is responsible for ordering executions in Japan, the only industrialized and democratic country along with the USA that maintains the death penalty, and where legislation stipulates that convicted persons must be hanged and informed only hours before execution.

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