Japan hanged two death-row inmates Thursday morning, NHK TV channel reported quoting the Justice Ministry.

Masakatsu Nishikawa, one of the two executed inmates, was convicted of killing four female bar owners in western Japan in 1991, while Sumida, 34, was sentenced to death for killing his female colleague in 2011 and dismembering her body.

Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda ordered the executions, which were the 18th and 19th carried out since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to power in December 2012.

The previous execution, the first ordered by Kaneda, was in November 2016, when a man was hanged for killing two women in Kumamoto Prefecture.