Key points
- Japan has executed Takahiro Shiraishi, who killed nine people in 2017 by luring them via Twitter.
- The execution comes amid growing calls to abolish the death penalty in Japan.
“Twitter Killer” Hanged in Japan / Photo GettyImages
Japan has executed Takahiro Shiraishi, a serial killer who brutally murdered nine people in 2017 by luring them via Twitter. It is the first execution to take place in the country since 2022.
Channel 24 reports, citing Bloomberg and The Guardian.
What is known about the “Twitter killer”
Takahiro Shiraishi, a serial killer known as the “Twitter killer,” was executed at a Tokyo pretrial detention center on Friday, June 27. The 34-year-old was hanged following a 2020 conviction for a series of brutal murders that stunned Japan.
His victims included eight women aged between 15 and 26 and one man, the boyfriend of one of the women. All the murders took place in his apartment in the city of Zama, near Tokyo, where police later found body parts in refrigerators.
According to investigators, Shiraishi found his victims on Twitter. He looked for people who expressed intentions to commit suicide and offered them “help” in committing suicide. After the victims showed up at his home, he raped, killed and dismembered them.
He killed a man who was the boyfriend of one of the victims to cover up his crimes.
The execution comes amid growing calls for the death penalty to be abolished in Japan, which have intensified since the acquittal in 2024 of Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest-serving death row inmate.
