Japan has executed the so-called “Twitter killer,” a man who killed nine people contacted through the social media platform, local media reported Friday, in the country’s first application of the death penalty since 2022.

Takahiro Shiraishi had been sentenced to death for strangling and dismembering eight women and a man in his apartment in Zama City, Kanagawa, near Tokyo, in 2017. He was known as the “Twitter Killer” for contacting victims through the social networking site.

Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who authorized Shiraishi’s hanging, said he made the decision after careful analysis, taking into account the convict’s “extremely selfish” motive for committing crimes that “caused great shock and social unrest.”

Shiraishi, 34, admitted to all nine murders, media reported. He explained that he would contact suicidal people on the platform and offer them help in dying.

The victims, aged between 15 and 26, would go to his home near Tokyo, where he would kill them, dismember them, and hide their remains in small refrigerators.

In Japan, capital punishment is carried out by hanging, and prisoners are notified of their execution hours beforehand. This has long been denounced by human rights groups due to the stress it causes those facing death row.

“It is not appropriate to abolish the death penalty while these violent crimes continue to be committed,” Suzuki told a news conference. There are currently 105 prisoners on death row in Japan, he added.