Sunao Takami doused the Osaka venue with petrol and set it on fire in 2009, killing four customers and one employee
2-MIN READ2-MIN ListenAgence France-PressePublished: 10:38am, 21 Aug 2026Japan executed on Friday a man convicted of an arson attack on a pachinko parlour in 2009 that killed five people, authorities said.It was Japan’s first hanging since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people, was put to death in June 2025.Sunao Takami, the man executed on Friday, doused a pachinko parlour – a popular game mixing pinball and a slot machine using small steel balls – near his home in Osaka with petrol and set it on fire, killing four customers and one employee.
Japan and the United States are the only two G7 countries to still use capital punishment, and surveys suggest there is strong support among the Japanese public.
In a 2024 government survey, 83 per cent saw the death penalty as “unavoidable”, although it also found those in favour of abolishing capital punishment had risen to 17 per cent from nine per cent five years earlier.
However, there is widespread criticism of the system, with death row inmates typically only informed on the morning of their last day that they are about to be hanged.
There was one execution in 2022, three in 2021, three in 2019 and 15 in 2018, the justice ministry said last year. There are around 100 people on death row.
