Japan hanged three convicted murderers today, including the killer of four young girls, the Justice Ministry said, in a further sign the country is speeding up the pace of executions.
Among those executed was 45-year-old Tsutomu Miyazaki, who kidnapped and murdered four young girls aged 4-7 years in the late 1980s, then cut up and burned their bodies, the ministry said in a statement.
The hangings bring to 13 the number of executions authorised by Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, a strong supporter of the death penalty, since he took office last September.
Also executed were 73-year-old Yoshio Yamasaki, who murdered two people for insurance money, and 37-year-old Shinji Mutsuda, who killed two people and threw their bodies into the ocean in a box packed with concrete.
"The lives of the victims were taken in these extremely brutal cases that go beyond words," Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said.
"To realise justice and to securely protect a nation where the law is respected, I am enforcing the death penalties."
Hatoyama is trying to reduce the number of prisoners on death row, after a previous justice minister refused to sign death warrants for religious reasons.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said he saw no need to abolish the death penalty as a majority of Japanese supported it.
"This is an issue which me must consider while keeping an eye on the trend of world opinion," he said in an interview with news agencies ahead of next month's Group of Eight summit.
Opinion polls show most Japanese people support capital punishment but there is a vocal movement to try to end the hangings.
"It seems like he has completely deviated from the rule of executing extremely cautiously," said Akiko Takada, a member of Forum 90, an anti-death penalty organisation with some 5,000 participants including around 200 lawmakers.
"This is a strong expression of the will that Japan is going to continue regardless of the international community or what the United Nations says."
In December, the United Nations passed a non-binding resolution calling on member countries to suspend the death penalty with a view to abolishing it.
Japan executed nine people last year, the highest number since 1976, but well behind the United States, which executed 40 during the same period.