Japan on Friday executed serial killer Takahiro Shiraishi, ending a pause in capital punishment that had lasted almost three years. The 34-year-old, dubbed the “Twitter killer,” was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House after Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki signed the order earlier in the week. Shiraishi was convicted of murdering nine people—eight women and one man—whom he met on the social-media platform X, formerly Twitter, in 2017. Prosecutors said he lured victims aged 15 to 26 to his apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, by offering help with their suicidal thoughts, then strangled, raped and dismembered them before storing body parts in coolers and toolboxes. “I ordered the execution after careful and deliberate consideration,” Suzuki told reporters, calling Shiraishi’s motive “extremely selfish” and acknowledging the crimes’ profound impact on public safety. The hanging is the first under Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s administration and the first nationwide since July 2022, leaving 105 prisoners—49 of them seeking retrials—still on death row. Japan and the United States remain the only Group of Seven nations that continue to carry out executions, which in Japan are conducted by hanging with inmates given only hours’ notice.