Convicted killers executed in Japan
Japan hanged two convicted killers, including a man who burned six women to death, in the country's first executions in a year.
The justice ministry said Kazuo Shinozawa, 59, was hanged at the Tokyo Detention Centre on Wednesday.
Shinozawa set fire to a jewellery shop in 2000, burning six women to death.
The second death row inmate, Hidenori Ogata, 33, was also hanged at the Tokyo Detention Centre.
He stabbed a man and a woman to death in 2003.
Japan, along with the United States, is one of the few industrialised countries that still has capital punishment.
There is little public outcry against the death penalty in Japan, but the country has been criticized by rights groups such as Amnesty International and the main Japanese bar association.