China on Friday executed three Japanese citizens convicted of drug trafficking, three days after it executed the first Japanese citizen since the two nations normalized diplomatic ties in 1972.
The three executions were carried out early Friday after approval by the Supreme People's Court, the official Xinhua news agency quoted a court statement as saying, dpa reported.
The brief report gave further details of the executions. Reports by Japanese media said relatives met the three men on Thursday, and that two of the convicted traffickers were held in the north-eastern city of Dalian and the third in nearby Shenyang.
Chinese and Japanese media named the three convicted drug smugglers executed Friday as Teruo Takeda, 67, Hironori Ukai, 48, and Katsuo Mori, 67.
Despite pleas for clemency, China executed Japanese citizen Mitsunobu Akano on Tuesday after he was convicted of drug trafficking.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that China had dealt with Akano's case "strictly according to law and in a fair way."
"We hope this case will not affect Sino-Japanese relations," Jiang told reporters.
In December, China executed British man Akmal Shaikh for drug trafficking despite pleas for clemency from the British government and international rights groups, in the first execution of a European national in China for 50 years.
China has reported several other executions of foreigners convicted of drug trafficking. Most of them were citizens of other Asian countries such as Myanmar and Taiwan.
London-based Amnesty International last week appealed to China to make public its annual number of death sentences and executions, which remain a state secret.
Amnesty said that China again executed more people than the rest of the world put together in 2009, adding that "evidence from previous years and a number of current sources indicates that the figure remains in the thousands."
Last week, five Chinese citizens convicted of drug trafficking were executed in the south-eastern province of Fujian, Xinhua said.
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