Japanese true crime fans have been given a rare opportunity to view one of the country’s few remaining execution chambers, where the country’s worst criminals are put to death.
From the outside, the Tokyo Detention House in Katsushika City looks like a normal office block- but deep within its walls lies a secretive chamber where executions take place.
Inside the nondescript building, which is surrounded by a low wire fence, criminals on death row are taken to a morbidly empty room and made to stand in the middle of a red square.
As they are led to their fate, convicts pass a small gold statue of Kannon, a Buddhist goddess associated with mercy.
They then stand facing a viewing platform in another room, which is separated by a window, and are executed by hanging.
Medics then confirm their death and wipe the body down in a last sterile act.
Prisoners are often told of their fate only hours before their execution, meaning families and lawyers are often left in the dark until after the execution has taken place.
Witnesses of the hangings have also told of their horror as they watch officers pull the mechanical levers to drop prisoners, blindfolded and hooded to muffle their screams, through the floor into a chamber below.
Japan and the US are the only two nations in the G7 block to still dish out the controversial death sentence.
Death Penalty Information Centre, a US-based think tank, said Japan didn’t carry out any executions last year, although three new death sentences were imposed.
However, human rights campaigners fear executions may be starting to make a comeback after 21-year-old Yuki Endo, who murdered the parents of a girl after she rejected him, was sentenced to death in January 2024.
Yuki was just 19 when he stabbed the girl’s parents, attacked and injured her sister with a machete and burned the house down, making him the first person in Japan to be given death penalty for a crime committed between the ages of 18 and 19, the MailOnline reported.
The most recent executed prisoner was Tomohiro Kato in 2022, who killed seven people in 2008 by driving a truck into a crowd at the Akihabara shopping district.
Why are Japan’s executions so secretive?
Japan’s death penalty law requires that the executions must follow ‘utmost secrecy’, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.
Convicts typically find out about their execution on the morning it takes place, a local newspaper wrote, citing lawyer Yoshikuni Noguchi who once witnessed an execution.
After the announcement, the convict is moved to a special room and monitored by security officers.
Families are supposed to be told about the execution, but according to the UN and campaigners this isn’t always the case.
Lawyer Noguchi recounted the execution, describing in detail how with one pull of the lever, the body of the inmate was dropped through the hatch.
He had to grab the rope to stop it from shaking.
The experience impacted him deeply, with those around him saying he looked pale.
He later resigned from his role as a prison officer.
One of the most infamous convicts executed at Tokyo Detention House is cult leader Shoko Asahara, 63, real name Chizuo Matsumoto.
After founding the Aum Shinrikyo cult in 1984, he attracted loyal supporters into his bizarre ideology and world of rituals, such as drinking bathwater and wearing electrical caps for synchronised brain waves.
But behind the scenes, the cult was stockpiling weapons, and on March 20, 1995, Asahara and his worshippers released sarin nerve gas into the busy Tokyo subway.
The attack killed 13 people.
Asahara was eventually convicted of having killed 27 people in 13 murders and other assaults and kidnappings during six years of trying to build his twisted, alternative empire.
Following his failed appeals for his release, the mass murderer was hanged on July 6, 2018 with six other cult members.
Amnesty International feared that the appointment of Fumio Kishida as Japan’s Prime Minister in 2021 showed the country’s ‘lack of respect for right to life’.
Currently, Japan has 106 inmates on death row, Death Penalty Information Centre said.
Critics of capital punishment like Amnesty argue that death penalty is unacceptable, saying it denies human rights and it is irreversible and mistakes can happen.
Amnesty also claimed it does little to deter crime and it is used in countries with problematic human rights record like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Across the world, 55 countries have death penalty but 23 of those had not used it for ten years, according to Amnesty’s latest figures.
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Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
