Japan’s Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate Acquitted After 48 Years
Iwao Hakamada, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate, has been acquitted by a Japanese court after spending nearly five decades in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Hakamada, an 88-year-old former professional boxer, was convicted of a quadruple murder in 1968, but recent findings have revealed that key evidence used against him was fabricated.
Hakamada’s case marks only the fifth time a death row inmate has been acquitted in Japan’s post-war history, making his story both a tragedy and a rare legal victory.
Why was he arrested?
Hakamada was found guilty of killing his employer, his employer’s wife, and their two children in 1966, and was sentenced to death based on a confession he later claimed was coerced by police during brutal interrogations lasting up to 12 hours a day.
The main evidence against him was bloodstained clothes found a year after the murders in a tank of miso (soybean paste). However, new DNA testing revealed that the blood did not match Hakamada’s, casting serious doubts on the case.
The Tokyo High Court granted a retrial in 2014, and though Hakamada was released from prison at that time, his official acquittal only came after a lengthy legal process.
Central to the retrial was the claim that the clothes found in the miso tank had been tampered with by investigators. The defence argued that the bright red stains on the clothes should have darkened over time, making the evidence unreliable.
Shizuoka District Court declare Hakamada innocent
On Thursday, the Shizuoka District Court declared Hakamada innocent, confirming that investigators had fabricated evidence to convict him. The presiding judge, Koshi Kunii, stated that Hakamada was not guilty and that the case against him was built on falsified evidence.
"It is unjust to detain the defendant further, as the possibility of his innocence has become clear to a respectable degree,” said Kunii.
Hakamada’s sister, Hideko, who fought tirelessly for her brother’s release, expressed relief at the verdict.
"When I heard ‘not guilty,’ I couldn’t stop crying," she told reporters.
She had been Hakamada’s primary caretaker since his release in 2014.
Hakamada case sparks conversation over Japan’s use of death penalty
Though Hakamada wasn’t present in court due to his deteriorating mental health, his acquittal has sparked a broader conversation about Japan's criminal justice system and its use of the death penalty.
Japan remains one of the few industrialised countries, alongside the United States, to retain the death penalty, a policy with broad public support.
Rights groups have long criticised Japan’s practice of keeping death row inmates in solitary confinement for years, often without prior notice of their execution. Hakamada's 46 years on death row, mostly in solitary confinement, have left him with severe mental health issues.
For Hakamada, his long fight for justice has finally come to an end, but the emotional and mental toll of his wrongful conviction is a lasting reminder of the potential flaws in the justice system.
