Japan sentences cult leader to death

[question everything]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/02/28/japan_sentences_cult_leader_to_death/

TOKYO -- The former leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult was sentenced yesterday to hang for masterminding a crime spree that culminated in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 that killed 27 people and brought modern terrorism to one of the world's safest nations.

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I did not know that Japan had capital puninshment

[Dr Fate]

1. while I opose the death penalty,,,

I have to admit I wont lose any sleep tonight after hearing this...

[American Renaissance]

3. death by old age

The odds of actually being executed in Japan after being sentanced to death are practically nil. And it seems to be almost completely random.

There are only a few executions before each cabinate shuffle, I guess they don't want to set a precident of a justice minister not hanging anyone.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. Not really random

Executions in Japan are based on the heinousness of the crime. Most of the death row inmates who have been executed recently have been mass/serial murderers.

[Vas Liz]

2. JPN

Uses cap punishment VERY VERY rarely.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. Last year, there was one execution in Japan

It was of a man who had killed three people in two different incidents, including a mother and her child. The execution was conducted at the Osaka Penitentiary, the first time since 1995 that an execution had taken place there.

The previous year, there were two executions, one each at Fukuoka and Nagoya, on the same day.

http://www.mainichi.co.jp/news/selection/archive/200309/12/20030912k0000e040051003c.html

The Fukuoka inmate was convicted of abducting and murdering a college student with three collaborators. He had also engineered an escape from the prison in 1996. The Nagoya inmate was convicted of murdering a family of three.

Those were the first executions in Japan since December 2001.

http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~tamura/shinntya02-05.htm

According to Amnesty International Japan, there have been 43 (updated to 44 to include the Osaka inmate) executions in Japan since the death penalty moratorium was lifted in 1993.

http://www.incl.ne.jp/ktrs/aijapan/2002/020906.htm

[ButterflyBlood]

4. only 3 "industrialized" countries have capital punishment

the US, Japan and South Korea. It is extremely rare in Japan, I don't know how common it is in South Korea. However it is worth pointing out federal executions in the US are also extremely rare as well.

[chenGOD]

10. In South Korea...

There have been no executions since 1997, the year kim Dae-Jung became president. Current president Roh Moo-Hyun has continued the moratorium on executions, although there are a number of prisoners on death row (I don't know the exact numbers, sorry).

[Sugarbleus]

7. I didn't even know that Japan had the death penalty...eom

[militarymanusaf]

8. I was in Japan at the time of the subway attack,

and it really shocked everyone...in a similar way to how we were all shocked on 9/11.

The crime rate in Japan is nearly zero, and the thought of killing several innocent people is extremely rare.

[Zech Marquis]

9. if there's anyone who deserves to be executed

it's Matsumoto by a long shot. Just the thought of how many MORE peple could have died that day scares me, even now :scared:

[Art_from_Ark]

12. You think you're scared?

I had ridden the Chiyoda Line of the Tokyo subway, where one of the attacks occurred, a couple of days before:scared:

[Art_from_Ark]

11. A big difference between the subway attack and 9-11

besides the obvious differences in loss of life and financial damage, was the fact that the Japanese government did not go bonkers and start pushing through freedom-squelching "patriot" acts and the like, even though the subway attack was the work of domestic terrorists.

[JNelson6563]

13. Good point Art

But of course we have fascists in the WH so no surprise here.

Julie