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There’s a thing about the Japanese death penalty

A Japanese court Tuesday sentenced to death a one-time millionairess dubbed the “Black Widow”, who tricked elderly lovers into drinking cyanide and pocketed millions in insurance payouts and inheritance.

Kyoto District Court condemned Chisako Kakehi, 70, to the gallows for the murder of three men – including a husband – and the attempted murder of another, ending a high-profile case that has gripped the country.

Kakehi became notorious after using the poison cyanide to dispatch a number of elderly men she was involved with, drawing comparisons with the spider that kills its mate after copulation.

“The accused made the victims drink a cyanide compound with a murderous intention in all the four cases,” Judge Ayako Nakagawa told the court, according to public broadcaster NHK.

They don’t actually issue an execution date – it’s indeterminate.

When it does happen they open the cell door to deliver breakfast one, and one unknown to the prisoner in advance day, and then say, well, 15 minutes and then we’re topping you. Thus every morning becomes rather tortuous.

You can see the argument – those murdered din’t know their end date either. Can’t help but feel it’s a little too vicious to be the modus operandi though.

14 thoughts on “There’s a thing about the Japanese death penalty”

  1. So Much For Subtlety

    Better than the British alternative. Which is not executing them at all.

    Besides which the English speaking world is moving rapidly down the path of locking really unpopular people indefinitely. So there is no release date at all. That can’t be fun either.

  2. I can see a business opportunity here. Live stream the womans breakfast every morning on a betting site.

    I’ll get m coat……

  3. I think the idea of cruelty has become so devalued by the constant bleating of SJW types that it no longer has any meaning. Criminals on death row deserve little if any consideration as to their feelings.

  4. Wow, didn’t k ow that.

    My previous favourite fact about the Japanese was that if you topped yourself by jumping in front of a train they send your family a bill for the clean up.

  5. Bloke in North Dorset

    “Well, the Japanese aren’t known for eschewing cruelty. Ask any WWII PoW.”

    My father was crew in the Fleet Air Arm in the Pacific when the war ended and their aircraft carrier dumped their planes and filled the space with PoWs to bring back. All he would say is that he saw some of the hardest men he’d known crying as the PoWs were brought on board.

    For some reason I read Knights of Bushido when I was in my early 20s, probably to understand my father’s visceral hatred of the Japanese when they started to become an economic power. It still haunts me 40 years later.

    I also met and had a few beers with Jack Edwards in Hong Kong in the mid ’90s and he put me on to some books about what they did in Asia. That was just as harrowing.

    Its going to be a very long time before Japan is trusted in that region.

  6. @Bloke in North Dorset

    Europe: Germany goes off on one, does some seriously bad shit. Seventy years later: Forgiven and now is the predominant country in Europe.

    Asia: Japan goes off on one, does some seriously bad shit. Seventy years later, Asian countries will only do business at an arms length with Japan and will never turn their backs on them again.

    Spot the difference.

  7. @Andy in Japan,

    Germany does the same, though the bill is usually picked up by your third-party liability insurance (suicide is never culpable in Germany as it’s viewed as a mental illness).

  8. Bloke in North Dorset

    Salamander,

    I said I understand it, I didn’t say I agree with it. Despite my father’s experience and reading those books I don’t have a problem with Japan or the Japanese I’ve met. I’m also on record on here as being a Germanophile, I really like the people, their country and their way of life.

  9. Europe: Germany goes off on one, does some seriously bad shit. Seventy years later: Forgiven and now is the predominant country in Europe.

    Asia: Japan goes off on one, does some seriously bad shit. Seventy years later, Asian countries will only do business at an arms length with Japan and will never turn their backs on them again.

    Spot the difference.

    The difference is that Germany has been grovelling apologetically for the last 70 years and instructing all schoolchildren about the atrocities committed by their country. Japan tries to pretend that nothing happened (except for two A-bombs – they’re very big on that).

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