An 88-year-old man, recognized as the world’s longest-serving death row inmate, has been acquitted by a Japanese court after it ruled that the evidence used to convict him had been fabricated.
Iwao Hakamada, who spent nearly half a century on death row, was originally found guilty in 1968 of the murder of his employer, the man’s wife, and their two teenage children.
Recently, however, he was granted a retrial amid concerns that the investigators had planted evidence, leading to his conviction for the quadruple murder.
The 46 years Hakamada spent on death row have severely impacted his mental health, rendering him unfit to attend the hearing where his acquittal was finally delivered.
Hakamada’s case is among Japan’s most well-known legal sagas, drawing significant public interest. Approximately 500 people lined up for seats in the Shizuoka courtroom on Thursday to witness the decision.
As the court announced the verdict, Hakamada’s supporters outside cheered “banzai” — a Japanese exclamation meaning “hurray.” Due to his deteriorated mental condition, Hakamada was excused from all the hearings.
Since his release from prison in 2014 and the decision to grant him a retrial, he has lived under the care of his 91-year-old sister, Hideko, who fought for decades to clear his name.
She described her reaction to the court’s ruling: “When I heard the words ‘not guilty,’ I was so moved and happy, I couldn’t stop crying,” she told reporters.
Hakamada had once described his long legal struggle as “fighting a bout every day,” saying in 2018, “Once you think you can’t win, there is no path to victory.”
The case hinged on controversial evidence, particularly a set of bloodstained clothes found in a tank of miso a year after Hakamada’s arrest.
Iwao Hakamada (Photo: Getty Images)
Authorities had accused him of killing his employer and the family, setting their house on fire, and stealing 200,000 yen. Initially, Hakamada denied the charges but later confessed, stating that he had been coerced during brutal interrogations lasting up to 12 hours a day.
In 1968, he was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to death.
Over the years, however, Hakamada’s defense lawyers argued that the DNA on the clothes did not match his, suggesting the items might belong to someone else. They further contended that the police may have fabricated the evidence.
This argument proved pivotal in 2014, when Judge Hiroaki Murayama remarked, “The clothes were not those of the defendant,” and deemed it unjust to keep Hakamada detained any longer. He was released from jail and granted a retrial.
The prolonged legal process delayed the start of his retrial until last year, with the final verdict only arriving on Thursday.
The crux of the retrial and Hakamada’s eventual acquittal centered on the condition of the red stains on the clothing that the prosecution claimed belonged to him.
The defense argued that the stains’ color should have darkened after being submerged in soybean paste for a long time, and the fact that they had not raised serious doubts about the evidence’s authenticity.
On Thursday, the court ruled that the investigators had tampered with the clothes by applying blood and then hiding them in the miso tank, according to AFP. Hakamada was declared innocent.
His 91-year-old sister, Hideko, who has cared for him since his release in 2014, stood by him throughout the decades of his imprisonment.
The lengthy detention and years of solitary confinement, during which Hakamada faced the constant threat of execution, have severely affected his mental health, according to his lawyers and family.
Hideko has long championed his release. When the retrial commenced last year, she expressed a sense of relief, saying, “Finally, a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”
Retrials for death row inmates are rare in Japan; Hakamada’s case marks only the fifth such instance in the country’s post-war history.
Japan, along with the United States, remains one of the few G7 nations that still employs capital punishment. Death row inmates in Japan are typically notified just a few hours before their execution.
