JAPAN INCREASES HANGINGS TO EASE DEATH ROW OVERCROWDING

August 23, 2007: Japan carried out three hangings, the most executions in a single day in 31 years, as it struggles to reduce a growing death row population. Hifumi Takezawa, 69, and Yoshio Iwamoto, 63, were hanged in Tokyo Detention House and Kozo Segawa, 60, in the central city of Nagoya. All were convicted of multiple murders. In 1990, Takezawa killed a 68-year old man whom he mistakenly believed was having an affair with his wife. He took him into a forest, forced him to write a fake suicide note, strangled him with a rope, and set fire to his car. Three years later, for the same reason, he and an accomplice broke into a house and stabbed to death a man and his wife before burning down their house. Segawa’s death sentence was confirmed six years ago, but Nobuo Oda, who was convicted of a murder and arson in 1966, had been on death row for 37 years. Masaru Okunishi, who was convicted of poisoning five people in 1969, has been on death row for 38 of his 81 years. According to Amnesty Internation, one of three men, Hifumi Takezawa, had been diagnosed as suffering from mental illness. The human rights organisation said that, at the time of his trial, doctors from both the prosecution and defence found Takezawa was mentally ill.
"At his appeal, his lawyer argued that Takezawa had apparently suffered a significant personality change as a result of a stroke, which made him paranoid and aggressive, but the judge rejected the appeal," AI said.
"It is not known whether Takezawa had received any medical treatment for his mental illness during his nine years on death row." (Sources: Times Online, 24/08/2007; AI, 26/08/2007)