Posted on 06/17/2008 1:29:10 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Japan hangs 3 convicted murderers
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press writer
9 minutes ago
A serial killer who mutilated the bodies of four young girls and reportedly drank the blood of one of his victims was among three convicted murderers executed in Japan on Tuesday for crimes an official called indescribably cruel.
Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, whose rash of grisly killings in the late 1980s triggered calls for tighter restrictions on violent pornographic videos, was hanged at a detention center in Tokyo, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said.
Miyazaki burned the body of one 4-year-old and left her bones on her parents' doorstep. He also wrote letters to the media and victims' families taunting police. Japanese newspaper reports said he ate part of the hand of one of his victims and drank her blood.
The two others executed Tuesday were Shinji Mutsuda, 45, who had been on death row for the murder and robbery of two people, and Yoshio Yamasaki, 73, who was convicted of killing two people for the insurance money, the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
"I ordered their executions because the cases were of indescribable cruelty," Hatoyama said. "We are pursuing executions in order to achieve justice and firmly protect the rule of law."
Japan, one of the few industrialized countries that has capital punishment, has picked up the pace of executions over the past year amid rising concerns about violent crime.
The three executions brought to 13 the number of death row inmates hanged in the past six months under Hatoyama, an outspoken supporter of the death penalty. Only one inmate was executed in 2005.
Amnesty International Japan protested Tuesday's hangings and said the pace of executions in Japan is quickening. In a statement, the group also demanded Japan abolish capital punishment.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said there is no need for a change.
"There is no other policy than to maintain the current policy," Fukuda said Tuesday. "There are people who want to abolish it, but that is a minority view. The majority want it to be maintained. I feel there is no need to change it, but we must also keep an eye on world opinion."
Hatoyama, who took office last August, denied his ministry was purposely picking up the pace of hangings. Three men were executed in December, three more in February and another four in April.
In 1997, Tokyo District Court found Miyazaki guilty of killing four girls aged 4 to 7 years old in 1988 and 1989, and sentenced him to death. The Tokyo High Court upheld the sentence in 2001, and the Supreme Court followed suit on Jan. 17 this year, exhausting Miyazaki's appeals.
Miyazaki was also convicted of the abduction and sexual assault of a fifth girl.
The murders and Miyazaki's arrest dominated Japanese headlines, along with the discovery that his home was filled with a collection of thousands of violent pornographic videos, animated films and comic books stacked floor-to-ceiling.
The case triggered concerns that many young people had become desensitized to human suffering through the repeated viewing of graphic images in videos and comics.
Mutsuda also was hanged at the Tokyo detention center for killing two men and robbing them of $278,000 in 1995 and 1996. Yamasaki was executed in Osaka for murders committed in 1985 and 1990.
Japan has 102 death row inmates after Tuesday's hangings, the ministry said.
The government began to release the names of those executed and their crimes in December, easing its secret policy in an apparent move to gain understanding and support for capital punishment.
Despite international criticism of Japan's death penalty, there is little opposition to the policy domestically.
Ping!
The lack of a death penalty is a leading sign of a society that doesn’t have what it takes to ensure its long term survival. It’s rather emblematic of giving up in the face of evil.
Kudos to Japan for not caving to the likes of the Shamnesty International crowd.
I’m generally against the death penalty except in cases where the accused is convicted on the basis of a guilty plea; it’s too easy to kill the wrong guy. However, in cases such as that of Miyazaki, I make an exception. The guy was simply one of the lowest pieces of filth ever to exist on this planet. Every breath he was allowed to draw prior to his richly deserved execution was one too many.
Japan does not cotton to any of that modern, painless, lethal injection stuff. In Japan, they simply hang your ass — quietly, behind prison walls, with no press coverage and no media fuss.
I hate to say this about another human being, but in the case of Miyazaki I say good riddance to bad garbage. May his existence be erased from human memory; may his name never be spoken again.
Sayonara!
What is it that some people don't understand about the term "justice?" Sometimes the only way true justice can be achieved is through the death penalty. It's not that complicated of a concept.
Let a family member of a death penalty protester be the victim of a heinous murder, and they'd change their tune real fast. Without having to experience it themselves, they have no empathy for the dead, and especially no empathy for the families that have to deal with knowing that a loved one was brutally, senselessly murdered, while also knowing that the murderer gets to keep on living, which adds to the frustration and pain. Screw that.
It sounds to me like the Japanese are intent on carrying out the death penalty when it's required, and aren't afraid to stand by it as a sane policy. Good for them.
If you take a precious life for senseless or greedy reasons, then you should pay with your own life. Why is that such a problem for some people that have nothing better to do than whine about murderers getting the justice due them? Cry me a river.
If it was up to me, the death penalty would have many different degrees of swiftness. In cases where there is no doubt about the guilt of the perp (like with the Long Island railroad mass murders), the perp should be put to death immediately, like the next day. In cases where a conviction of guilt was established, but not necessarily an airtight conviction, then let them exhaust their appeals.
definitely NOT "mata, aimashou"
I'm encouraged that Japan took this scum off the face of the earth. And I congratulate the fact that that the Japanese people won't have to feed, clothe and house these three perverts at the waste of precious resources.
I believe that the death penalty will come back generally in Europe, although I believe that the societies themselves have been so "gutterized" that there will be many people put to death for the wrong reasons.
Nevertheless, well done, Japan.
As in for blasphemy - for failing to give the Koran the respect that Europe's future rulers will demand?
“As in for blasphemy - for failing to give the Koran the respect that Europe’s future rulers will demand?”
I’m glad that the moderators allow mind reading on THIS thread. You did a good job with my mind. Bullseye!
Japan has an old and advanced culture.
Unlike the declining Western Civilizations,Nippon has the moral clarity to punish ultimate evil with ultimate punishment.
Only coward governments with no true concern for their people avoid holding their worse criminals fully responsible.
It is a very simple concept if you limit your thinking to what's going on in the physical level of existence; if you ratchet it up a notch or two to a more spiritual or philosophical level it becomes less simple. Having a society engage in sanctioned murder no matter how "justified" doesn't advance it.
You've drawn a rather fuzzy line. If you're against the death penalty, then be against it. Don't make exceptions. Exceptions allow bias and prejudice to rule the day.
The lack of a death penalty is a leading sign of a society that doesn’t have what it takes to ensure its long term survival
Electric bleachers sounds good to me save money an eye for an eye works.
“Advanced culture”- Hmmm, are you aware of the porn and anime that comes out of that “advanced culture”? It makes American stuff look Victorian.
“It is a very simple concept if you limit your thinking to what’s going on in the physical level of existence; if you ratchet it up a notch or two to a more spiritual or philosophical level it becomes less simple. Having a society engage in sanctioned murder no matter how “justified” doesn’t advance it.”
I suppose your defintion “in the physical level of existence” doesn’t mean that when someone is murdered that they are really dead? They still have a “spiritual or philosophical” existence? Some bad people need killing and your word games doesn’t excuse that. The world needs to execute more of these killers, not less.
pics?
I would not have thought Japan had a DP. I thought they were one of those societies considered by the elites to be so much more civilized than the US because they have so little gun crime.
They hang the condemned? How long before the UN and every lefty group starts screaming they should stop this because it is racist and offensive to a certain segment of the US population?!
Your opinion not mine pal
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