Japan hangs three prisoners since 2010

As the BBC reports Japan has hanged three death row inmates in its first executions since July 2010.

Japan is one of the few advanced industrialised nations to retain the death penalty. It is usually reserved for multiple murders, it says.

According to Reuters Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa authorized the executions of the three men and they were hanged in jails in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, the ministry said.

They were the first executions in Japan since two death row inmates were hanged in July 2010. Those executions marked the first time capital sentences had been carried out since the Democratic Party of Japan took power in late 2009.

Japanese media reported that one of the men executed on Thursday had killed five people at a train station in western Japan in 1999.