South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre claims that the issuance of death warrants by the Ministry of Justice may be politically motivated . In 1997 , Norio Nagayama , a prisoner who committed the first of several murders as a juvenile , was executed during the sentencing phase of " Sakakibara Seito " for the Kobe child murders , also resulting in a high-profile juvenile murder trial – an attempt , according to South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre , to show that the harshest punishment could be administered to juveniles . According to '' The New York Times '' , the execution of Tsutomu Miyazaki after the Akihabara massacre was claimed to be a similar case
Kobe child murders
Kobe child murders
Capital punishment in Japan