Tokyo High Court Orders Retrial for World's Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate
Date
3/14/2023 7:24:02 AM
(MENAFN) Iwao Hakamada, an 87-year-old former professional boxer, who has been on death row for over five decades, was granted a retrial by the Tokyo High Court on Monday. The court found that there is a possibility that key evidence that led to his conviction, such as blood-stained clothing, may have been fabricated by investigators. Hakamada has been the world's longest-serving death row inmate.
Hakamada was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of a company manager and three of his family members, as well as setting fire to their central Japan home, where he was a live-in employee. He was sentenced to death two years later. Initially, he denied the accusations but later confessed, which he said was due to violent interrogation by police.
Hakamada has been out of prison but not cleared of charges since 2014 when the Shizuoka District Court in central Japan suspended his execution and ordered a retrial and his release. However, the Tokyo High Court overturned that ruling until the Supreme Court ordered the court to reconsider in 2020.
Hakamada's defense lawyers rushed out of the courtroom and flashed banners saying "Retrial," while his sister Hideko, 90, who has campaigned tirelessly on his behalf, said, "I was waiting for this day for 57 years, and it has come. Finally, a weight has been lifted from my shoulders."
The point of contention in the case was five pieces of blood-stained clothing that investigators said Hakamada allegedly wore during the crime and hid in a tank of fermented soybean paste, or miso, found over a year after his arrest. However, scientific experiments showed that clothing soaked in miso for more than a year turns too dark for blood stains to be spotted, indicating a possibility of fabrication, likely by investigators.
Earlier retrial decisions and defense lawyers also pointed out that the blood samples did not match Hakamada's DNA, and trousers that prosecutors submitted as evidence were too small for Hakamada and did not fit when he tried them on. The presiding judge Fumio Daizen also cast doubt on the credibility of the clothes as evidence, stating that "There is no evidence other than the clothes that could determine Hakamada was the perpetrator, so it is clear that reasonable doubt arises."
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