Japan court orders retrial for man after 45 years on death row

‘We won his retrial. I’m so glad, and that’s all I can say,’ says 87-year-old Iwao Hakamada’s sister Hideko, 90

A court in Japan has granted a retrial to an 87-year-old man who faced almost half a century on death row.

Iwao Hakamada is the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, according to Amnesty International. The Tokyo High Court said Mr Hakamada deserves a retrial because of a possibility that a key evidence that led to his conviction could have been fabricated by investigators, the Japan Bar Association said in a statement.

Hakamada was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of a company manager and three of his family members, and setting fire to their central Japan home, where he was a live-in employee. He was sentenced to death in 1968. He initially denied the accusations then confessed, which he later said he was forced to because of violent interrogation by police.

Supporters say Hakamada’s mental health has suffered because of his nearly half-century detention, mostly in solitary confinement, in fear of execution. He spent a total of 48 years in prison, more than 45 of them on death row.

In 2014, the Shizuoka District Court in central Japan suspended his execution and ordered a retrial and his release. That ruling was overturned by the Tokyo High Court until the Supreme Court in 2020 ordered the court to reconsider, leading to the latest decision. Hakamada has been serving his sentence at home since his release in 2014 because his frail health and age made him a low risk for escape.

His defense lawyers rushed out of the courtroom and flashed banners saying “Retrial.”

“We won his retrial. I’m so glad, and that’s all I can say,” said his 90-year-old sister Hideko, who has devoted her life to prove her brother's innocence.

Hakamada was not executed because of lengthy appeals and the retrial process. It took 27 years for the Supreme Court to deny his first appeal for a retrial. He filed a second appeal in 2008, and the courts have now ruled in his favor.

The point of contention 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 more than a year after his arrest.

The Tokyo High Court decision acknowledged scientific experiments that clothing soaked in miso for more than a year turns too dark for blood stains to be spotted, saying there is a possibility of fabrication.

Defense lawyers and earlier retrial decisions said 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.

Japan and the United States are the only two countries in the Group of Seven advanced nations that retain capital punishment. A survey by the Japanese government showed an overwhelming majority of the public support executions.

Executions are carried out in secrecy in Japan and prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged. Since 2007, Japan has begun disclosing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but disclosures are still limited.

Associated Press