An 88-year-old man ,Iwao Hakamada recognized as the world’s longest-serving death row inmate, has been exonerated by a Japanese court after it uncovered that evidence against him was fabricated.
Hakamada had spent over 50 years on death row, convicted in 1968 for the brutal murder of his employer, the man’s wife, and their two teenage children.
The case took a pivotal turn when Hakamada was granted a retrial, sparked by growing suspicions that investigators might have manipulated evidence to secure his conviction for the heinous quadruple murder.
This prolonged ordeal has severely impacted Hakamada’s mental health, rendering him unable to attend the court hearing where his acquittal was finally announced.
Hakamada’s story is one of Japan’s most notorious legal battles, capturing widespread public interest and drawing a crowd of around 500 supporters to the courtroom in Shizuoka on the day of the verdict.
Outside, as the news broke, supporters joyfully shouted “banzai,” a traditional Japanese expression meaning “hurray.”
Since his release from prison in 2014, Hakamada has lived with his 91-year-old sister, Hideko, who has been a steadfast advocate for his innocence.
Hakamada, reflecting on his protracted fight for justice, once stated to AFP, “Once you think you can’t win, there is no path to victory.”
The case’s origins trace back to 1966 when Hakamada, a former professional boxer working at a miso processing plant, was accused after the bodies of his employer and the family were discovered in their burnt home in Shizuoka.
All four victims had been fatally stabbed. Authorities claimed that Hakamada had murdered the family, set fire to their house, and stolen 200,000 yen in cash.
Initially denying the charges, Hakamada later provided a confession, which he later described as coerced, after enduring brutal interrogations that lasted up to 12 hours each day. In 1968, he was convicted of murder and arson, receiving a death sentence.
The crux of the decades-long legal battle revolved around a set of clothes discovered in a tank of miso a year after Hakamada’s arrest.
These clothes, alleged to be bloodstained, were crucial to his conviction. However, Hakamada’s legal team argued that DNA testing indicated the samples did not match his, suggesting they belonged to someone else and raised the possibility of evidence fabrication by the police.
This argument resonated with Judge Hiroaki Murayama, who, in 2014, noted, “the clothes were not those of the defendant.”
His ruling acknowledged the overwhelming evidence suggesting Hakamada’s innocence, declaring it “unjust to detain the defendant further, as the possibility of his innocence has become clear to a respectable degree.”
Following this, Hakamada was released from jail and granted a retrial, although it took years for the retrial to commence.
In 2023, as the retrial finally began, the court’s findings corroborated the defense’s claims.
The judge ruled that the red stains on the clothes could not be blood, as blood would not retain its color after a year in miso.
The ruling also confirmed that investigators had tampered with the clothes, deliberately introducing bloodstains to incriminate Hakamada.
The psychological toll of decades spent largely in solitary confinement, under the constant threat of execution, has been profound, according to his family and legal representatives.
Hideko has long campaigned for her brother’s release, expressing relief when the retrial commenced, stating, “Finally, a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”
Retrials for death row inmates are exceedingly rare in Japan, with Hakamada’s case marking only the fifth since the end of World War II.
Japan, along with the United States, remains one of the few G7 nations that still practices capital punishment, where death row inmates are informed of their impending execution just hours in advance.
