Three inmates were hanged Thursday, in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, in the country's first executions since July 2010.
Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa, the first of the past six justice ministers to tacitly support capital punishment, signed off on the three executions Thursday morning.
"I just performed my duty as a justice minister. The right to punish criminals rests on Japanese nationals, and a government poll shows the majority of Japanese support the death sentence," Ogawa said at a news conference. "Also, lay judge trials maintain the death sentence as a punishment, and lay judges are from the general public."