China executes convicted Japanese drug smuggler+

BEIJING, April 6 Kyodo - China on Tuesday executed a Japanese man, the first of four convicted Japanese drug smugglers it says it plans to put to death this week.

Mitsunobu Akano, 65, convicted in 2008 of attempting to smuggle about 2.5
kilograms of stimulant drugs from China to Japan with an accomplice in 2006,
was executed around 9:30 a.m. at a facility in Dalian city of Liaoning
Province, Japanese diplomats said.
It marked the first time China has executed a Japanese national since the two
countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1972.
Akano was believed to have been executed by lethal injection because the
province abolished the alternative method, execution by shooting, last
December.
Japanese officials have repeatedly voiced concern about China's execution of
Japanese nationals. Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan told Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao on Saturday that many people in Japan feel the penalty is severer than
Japanese standards.
Japan does not execute drug smugglers, only murderers. In July last year, it
executed a Chinese national convicted of murder.
China said Tuesday that smuggling of stimulant drugs and narcotics constitutes
a serious crime in the country and expressed hope that the execution of Akano
will not affect bilateral ties.
''We hope this case will not affect normal development of China-Japan ties,''
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a news conference. ''We attach
importance to the development of China-Japan relations.''
Jiang said China believes the implementation of the death penalty will ''deter
and prevent'' drug smuggling in the future
China's penal code says offenders face sentences of 15 years' imprisonment,
life imprisonment or death for smuggling stimulant drugs weighing 50 grams or
more.
Last December, China executed a British man convicted of smuggling illegal
drugs into the country, which drew strong criticism from British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown and human rights groups.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, Akano was caught carrying more than 1.544
kg of illegal drugs at an airport in Dalian when he went through a security
check in September 2006.
''The courts had clear and irrefutable evidence of drug smuggling and the death
sentence was handed down and carried out in line with Chinese law,'' Xinhua
quoted the Supreme People's Court as saying.
Police also found another 1.008 kg of drugs in the luggage of Akano's Japanese
accomplice, who has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Both were attempting
to take the drugs to Japan.
Akano met his family at a detention facility in Dalian on Monday, according to
a source involved in Japan-China relations.
The Dalian Intermediate People's Court sentenced Akano to death in June 2008.
He appealed, but the death penalty was finalized when the High People's Court
of Liaoning upheld it in 2009. China notified Japan of the intention to execute
Akano on March 29.
Chinese media have said Beijing executed a Japanese man in the 1950s for
planning to assassinate then Chinese leader Mao Zedong.
Last month, Amnesty International said ''thousands'' of executions were likely
to have taken place in China in 2009, while it criticized a lack of
transparency in the country where it said information on death penalty remains
a ''shameful state secret.''
On Tuesday, Amnesty's Tokyo office issued a statement strongly condemning the
execution of Akano and calling on Chinese authorities not to put the three
other condemned Japanese to death.
==Kyodo