The world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been acquitted by a court in Japan.
The court now ruled that the evidence used against him was fabricated.
Iwao Hakamada, currently 88, was found guilty in 1968 of killing his boss, his boss’s wife, and their two teenage children.
Once a professional boxer, Hakamada was working at a miso processing plant in 1966 when the stabbed bodies of his employer, the man’s wife and two children were recovered from a fire at their home in Shizuoka.
Authorities accused Hakamada of murdering them, setting fire to their home and stealing 200,000 yen in cash.
Hakamada initially denied having robbed and murdered the victims, but later gave a coerced confession after beatings and interrogations that lasted up to 12 hours a day.
In 1968 he was convicted of murder and arson, and sentenced to death.
Mentally unwell as a result of this trauma, as well as the impending doom of death and years of solitary confinement, Hakamada was unfit to attend the hearing.
He has actually been living with his sister since 2014, when he was freed from jail and promised this retrial. His 91-year-old sister fought for decades to clear his name.
“When I heard that, I was so moved and happy, I couldn’t stop crying,” she told reporters.
His supporters outside the court cheered “banzai”, a Japanese exclamation that means “hurray”, as the verdict was handed down
How was a retrial even considered?
Bloodstained clothes were found in a tank of miso a year after Hakamada’s arrest and were used to incriminate him. Hakamada’s lawyers, however, argued that the DNA recovered from the clothes did not match his, further suggesting that police could have fabricated the evidence. Meanwhile, the judge came to the conclusion that the stains on the clothes remained red with the passage of time and had not darkened after an extended time immersed in soybean paste, and there the evidence was indeed fabricated.
Hakamada was declared innocent.
Hakamada’s 91-year-old sister, Hideko, has cared for him since he was released from jail in 2014
Hakamada’s retrial is only the fifth retrial for death row in Japan’s post-war history.
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