The world’s longest serving death row inmate has been acquitted of a murder conviction from nearly 60 years ago.
Former boxer Iwao Hakamada was declared innocent on Thursday, September 25, after a court in Japan held a retrial for the murder of his then-boss and the man’s wife and two children. Hakamada, who was 30 when he was originally sentenced to death for the killing back in 1968, is now 88 and of delicate health, reports the Mirror.
He has been on death row for nearly six decades after his murder conviction. The retrial was decided 10 years ago following sufficient support and he was freed in 2014 following 56 years on death row.
Hakamada was pictured leaving the court in Shizuoka defiant alongside his 91-year-old sister Hideko.
The conviction was upheld by the highest court in Japan in 1980, but in March 2014 he was freed pending a retrial following new grounds that blood-stained clothes found in a tank of miso a year later which formed key prosecuting evidence had been planted. He is one of five death row inmates in Japan to have retrials ordered.
Judge Koshi Kunii said on Thursday: “The court finds the defendant innocent.” Supporter Atsushi Zukeran, who attended court in support, said following the landmark decision that Hakamada’s case was “a painful reminder of how Japan’s criminal justice system must change”.
As of December, 2023, some 107 prisoners remained on death row in Japan, where they are given just a few hours’ notice before being hanged.
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