TOKYO Four prisoners, including two men in their seventies, were hanged on Christmas Day as the Japanese Government ended a 15-month moratorium on the death penalty.

The hangings were the first since September 2005, when a convicted murderer was executed. The death penalty is supported widely in Japan and analysts said that the Government wanted to carry out executions in 2006, which would have been the first year without hangings since 1992.

The timing of the executions has been condemned by Christians, who makes up 1 per cent of the largely Shinto and Buddhist country. “It was such an insensitive act,” Makoto Suzuki, a Christian active in the anti-death penalty movement, said. “Christmas is the day to reaffirm humanity.”

According to reports, the four were Yoshimitsu Akiyama, 77, and Yoshio Fujinami, 75, both convicted murderers; Hiroaki Hidaka, 44, a taxi driver from Hiroshima convicted of murdering four; and Michio Fukuoka, 64, who killed three people. (AFP)

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