A Japanese court ruled today that an 88-year-old former boxer was innocent in a retrial of a 1966 quadruple-murder trial, overturning his death sentence after decades behind bars, the Associated Press reported, citing state broadcaster NHK. from BTA.
The acquittal of Iwao Hakamada by the Shizuoka Prefectural District Court makes him the fifth death row inmate to be found not guilty in a retrial in post-war Japanese criminal justice. The president of the court, Koshi Kuni, said the court had found that the evidence in the case had been repeatedly falsified and that Hakamada was not guilty, NHK reported.
Hakamada was convicted of a 1966 murder in which a company manager and three members of his family were killed and their home in central Japan set on fire. He was sentenced to death in 1968 but was not executed due to long appeals and retrials.
He spent 48 years behind bars – most of them with the death sentence – and is the longest held prisoner sentenced to death in the world, notes AP.
The Supreme Court rejected his first appeal for reconsideration a full 27 years later. A second appeal to reopen the case was filed in 2008 by his sister, Hideko Hakamada, now 91, and the court finally ruled in his favor in 2023, paving the way for the filing of request for the current reopening of the case, which began in October.
Hakamada was released from prison in 2014 when a court ordered a retrial based on new evidence that suggested his conviction may have been based on trumped-up charges by investigators, but he has not been released from prison responsibility. After being released from prison, Hakamada is serving his sentence at home, as his frail health and age make escape unlikely.