Hakamada, longest serving death row inmate acquitted by Japanese court
An 88-year-old man who had been the longest-serving death row inmate on the planet has been acquitted by a Japanese court. This came after it found that the evidence used against Iwao Hakamada was fabricated.
Iwao Hakamada had been on death row for over half a century, having been found guilty of in 1968 of the killing of his boss, his boss’s wife, and their two teenage children. He was recently given a retrial following suspicion that investigators may have planted the evidence that led to his conviction for the quadruple murder.
This had been among the longest and most famous in Japan, attracting widespread public interest. Around 500 people lined up for seats in the Shizuoka courtroom. Once the verdict was handed down, supporters outside were heard to have chanted “banzai” a Japanese exclamation meaning “hurray.”
Hakamada was not in court, being exempt from hearings due to his deteriorated mental state. Since 2014, he has been under the care of his sister after being freed from jail and given a retrial.
The former professional boxer was working at a miso processing plant in 1966 before the bodies of his employer, the man’s wife, and two children were recovered from a fire at their Shizuoka home to the west of the capital. All four victims were stabbed to death.
Authorities believed that Hakamada murdered the family, set the home on fire, and stole 200,000 yen in cash. He initially denied the robbery and murder but would later give what he would call a “coerced” confession after beatings and interrogations which would last up to 12 hours a day.
He would end up convicted of murder and arson and was sentenced to death.
Bloodstained clothes found in a tank of miso shortly after the discovery of the bodies would be used to incriminate Hakamada but for years, his lawyers have argued that the DNA recovered from the clothes did not match his. This raised the possibility that they belonged to someone else, with his lawyers arguing that the police may have fabricated the evidence.
They were able to persuade Judge Hiroaki Murayama in 2014 who noted that “the clothes were not those of the defendant.”
“It is unjust to detain the defendant further, as the possibility of his innocence has become clear to a respectable degree,” the judge said.
Hakamada was granted a retrial and released from jail. Prolonged legal proceedings meant that it took until 2023 before the retrial would begin and only until 2024 that the court would declare a verdict.
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Image: Akahito Yamabe
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