Japan has hanged two men in the first executions in the country for around a year.

The gallows at the Tokyo Detention House were open to the media for the first time.

Both men were convicted of multiple killings.

Kazuo Shinozawa, 59, received a death sentence after he was found guilty of setting fire to a jewelry shop in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, in June 2000. Shinzawa was taking part in a robbery which netted ¥140 million ($1.6 million). Six female workers from the jewelry shop died in the fire.

Hidenori Ogata, 33, was convicted of murder over the deaths of a man and a woman, and was also convicted of attempting to murder two other women in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, in 2003.

Hanging is the most common form of executing prisoners in Japan. On February 27, 2004, the mastermind of the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Shoko Asahara, was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. On December 25, 2006, serial killer Hiroaki Hidaka and three others were hanged in Japan. Another 107 prisoners on death row in Japan are waiting to be executed.