An 88-year-old Japanese man has been sensationally cleared of all charges after spending 48 years in prison, with 46 of them on death row, making him the world’s longest-serving death row inmate.
Iwao Hakamada was convicted in 1968 for the murder of his boss, the boss’s wife, and their two children, but recent evidence revealed that investigators had likely fabricated crucial pieces of evidence.
Despite his acquittal, Hakamada’s deteriorated mental health, caused by decades of solitary confinement, meant he was unable to attend the court hearing.
His case has attracted widespread attention in Japan, with 500 people gathering in court to witness the historic ruling, and hundreds queuing outside the district court. Supporters held up banners and cheered “banzai”, a Japanese celebratory “hurray,” as the verdict was delivered.
A former professional boxer, Hakamada was arrested in 1966 after being accused of murdering his employer’s family and setting their home on fire.
Though he initially denied the charges, he later confessed under duress after enduring long, harsh interrogations.
But in 2014, Hakamada was released from prison, after judge Hiroaki Murayama found issues with the evidence used in his conviction, raising suspicions of tampering. He has been living under the care of his 91-year-old sister Hideko Hakamada since.
She admitted: “It is so difficult to get a retrial started. Not just Iwao, but I’m sure there are other people who have been wrongly accused and crying. … I want the criminal law revised so that retrials are more easily available.”
In the retrial, presiding judge Koshi Kunii claimed that three pieces of evidence had been fabricated, including Hakamada’s “blood-stained” clothes and his “confession”.
His conviction largely relied on bloodstained clothes found in a miso tank, but his defense team argued that the stains were fabricated, as blood would not remain red after being immersed in miso for a year.
The judge accepted this argument, concluding that the evidence had been tampered with, leading to Hakamada’s acquittal.
The ruling cited that the “investigators tampered with clothes by getting blood on them,” and that “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement … by imposing mental and physical pain”.
Iwao Hakamada had previously told AFP that his battle for justice was like “fighting a bout every day,” and that “once you think you can’t win, there is no path to victory.”
The case is one of Japan’s most high-profile legal sagas and a rare example of a retrial for a death row inmate. Japan and the U.S. remain the only G7 countries that still practice capital punishment.
Amnesty International’s East Asia Researcher Boram Jang said: “Japanese authorities must review all existing death sentences, particularly when there are concerns of mental and intellectual disabilities.”
She added: “As we celebrate this long overdue day of justice for Hakamada, we are reminded of the irreversible harm caused by the death penalty. We strongly urge Japan to abolish the death penalty to prevent this from happening again.”
