Azernews.Az

Japan executed a 34-year-old death row inmate known as the "Twitter Killer," who was convicted of killing nine people at his apartment south of Tokyo in 2017, marking the first person to be put to death in the country in nearly three years, Azernews reports.

Takahiro Shiraishi was executed at the Tokyo Detention House, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.

The method of execution was hanging.

"I ordered the execution after careful and deliberate consideration," Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told reporters during a press conference following the execution, the Kyodo News agency reported.

Shiraishi was sentenced to death in December 2020. He was convicted of luring his victims to his apartment, where he killed nine people, eight females and one male.

He was arrested in October 2017 after several dismembered bodies were found in his apartment by police investigating the disappearance of a local woman.

Authorities said Shiraishi and his victim met after she expressed suicidal thoughts online.

He told investigators that he targeted those who expressed suicidal ideation on social media, including Twitter, earning him the moniker "Twitter Killer."

He would lure them to his apartment under the pretense that they would die together in a pact, but instead, he killed them and dismembered their bodies.