On Boxing Day, Chinese man Wei Wei was executed by hanging in Japan. The 40-year-old had been on death row since 2011. However, his execution happened within days of Justice Minister Masako Mori's execution order. While his accomplices faced justice in China, Wei was executed in the country where he committed his crime.

In June 2003, Wei and his two accomplices pre-meditated the attack on clothing dealer Shinjiro Matsumoto. The 41-year-old businessman and his family were attacked by the three men. The men killed Matsumoto, his wife and his two children aged eight and 11. The family was attacked in their Fukuoka home.

After robbing the home, the three criminals decided to get rid of the bodies. They attached weights to the four bodies and dropped them into the water close to Fukuoka's Hakata port. Wei and the other two murderers had entered Japan on student visas. After their crime, they had tried to flee to China where they were arrested.

Man hanging
Chinese man was executed by hanging in Japan. Reuters

One of the perpetrators was sentenced to death in China and executed in 2005. The other accomplice received a life sentence for cooperating with the investigators and admitting his crime.

Wei had sought a light sentence claiming that he had a subordinate role in the murder plan. However, in May 2005 the Fukuoka District Court handed Wei the death penalty. Wei's appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court in October 2011, according to Kyodo News.

On Monday, Mori gave Wei's execution order stating that his crime of killing a happy family was "extremely deplorable." Wei's execution order was the first one signed by Mori since she assumed office in October. In 2019 a total of three executions have taken place in Japan.

The Daily Mail pointed out that out of the Group of Seven, Japan and the United States are the only countries where criminals are still given capital punishment. Abolishing or suspending death sentences has become the global norm. Japan Federation of Bar Associations has asked the Japanese government to abolish death sentences by 2020. The association has suggested life sentences without parole as an alternative to capital punishment.

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