Japan executed three men for murder Friday, including a convicted rapist who stabbed to death a previous victim in revenge for testifying against him, the government said.

Prison officials hanged Takashi Mochida in Tokyo, Masahiko Matsubara in the western city of Osaka and Keishi Nago in southern Fukuoka, the ministry said in a statement.

Friday's executions were the second since the Justice Ministry started disclosing identities of the executed and details of their crimes, following calls for more transparency. The last executions — also of three men — were in December.

Mochida, 65, was executed for the 1997 murder of a woman he had raped eight years earlier. The ministry said the murder was in revenge for reporting the rape, for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Matsubara, 63, was convicted of killing, raping and robbing two women in separate cases in 1988 after he broke into their homes.

In one case, he knocked a 61-year-old woman on the floor, strangled her with an electrical cord, raped her and stole $260. About two months later, Matsubara broke into another home and strangled, raped and robbed a 44-year-old woman.

Nago, 37, was convicted of stabbing to death his brother's 40-year-old wife and 17-year-old daughter with a dozen thrusts of a sashimi knife. He also attacked his brother's 13-year-old son, but the boy survived.

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, said the hangings were in line with his push to speed up the pace of executions in Japan.

"We carried out the executions solemnly after carefully examining each case, rather than considering timing and intervals of the punishment," he said.

Execution details formerly kept secret

One of the few industrialized nations to retain the death penalty, Japan has faced criticism by human rights activists for keeping execution details secret.

Until November 1998 the Japanese government had only provided the number of executions in annual statistics. The ministry then started providing the number of people hanged on the day of the hangings, allowing international human rights groups to track Japan's record.

Until last year, the ministry had refused to reveal any other information of the executed, including their names, saying the disclosure would distress the inmates' families and others on death row.

The ministry changed the policy following requests from victims' families and their supporters. The ministry also is attempting to promote public support for capital punishment through greater disclosure.

Last year, Japan executed nine convicts.