China has executed a man convicted in the 2003 murders of a family of four in Fukuoka in a burglary that netted less than 40,000 yen the Japanese Consulate in Shenyang said Monday.
The Chinese government informed the consulate that Yang Ning, 25, was executed July 12, the consulate said.
The execution followed a court's rejection of an appeal by Yang at an undisclosed date, the statement said.
The Intermediate People's Court in Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, sentenced Yang to death in January for the murder of clothing dealer Shinjiro Matsumoto and his family.
In the Jan. 24 ruling, the court sentenced another man, Wang Liang, 23, to life imprisonment in connection with the murders.
Wang was given life because he turned himself in and cooperated with investigators. Neither the Chinese prosecutors nor Wang appealed that ruling.
The two men, both formerly students in Japan, were found guilty of killing 41-year-old Matsumoto, his wife, Chika, 40, their 11-year-old son, Kai, and 8-year-old daughter, Hina, during a robbery.
The two returned to China soon after the murders made national headlines in Japan.
They were tried in China because they were detained there and the two nations have no extradition treaty.
An accomplice, Wei Wei, 25, was arrested in Japan. The Fukuoka District Court sentenced him to death for his part in the murders in May.
He has filed an appeal.
According to Wei's indictment in Japan, the three strangled Matsumoto with a necktie in the early hours of June 20, 2003, drowned his wife in a bathtub, smothered their son with a pillow and strangled their daughter.
The victims' bodies were found in Hakata Bay later that day, handcuffed and weighted down with dumbbells. The three intruders stole around 37,000 yen from the family, according to the indictment.