Tokyo: Japan hanged a Chinese man on Thursday (Dec 26) convicted of the murder of a family of four whose bodies were found handcuffed and weighted down with dumbbells in a bay, the justice minister said.

According to the details, Justice Minister Masako Mori said she had signed off on the execution of Wei Wei “after careful consideration”.

“It is an extremely cruel and brutal case in which the happily living family members, including an eight-year-old and 11-year-old, were all murdered because of truly selfish reasons,” she said.

In Japan, death row inmates are not told of their impending execution until the day it is carried out.

Wei Wei, a former language student aged 40, had admitted carrying out the murders but denied playing the leading role.

He and his accomplices had tried to rob the home of businessman Shinjiro Matsumoto in the city of Fukuoka.

Mr Matsumoto was strangled, his two children strangled or smothered and his wife drowned in the bath.