A Japanese man who spent the longest time on death row in the world has been acquitted of murder after nearly 60 years. Iwao Hakamada, now 88, was cleared of the charges by the Shizuoka district court on Thursday. He had been convicted for the 1966 murders of his former boss and the boss’s family in central Japan.
Hakamada spent 45 years on death row before being released in 2014 when doubts about the evidence led to a retrial. His sister, Hideko Hakamada, who fought for decades to clear his name, expressed her joy in court, saying, “When I heard ‘not guilty,’ I couldn’t stop crying.”
Though Hakamada initially confessed to the murders, he later retracted his statement and maintained his innocence. However, he was sentenced to death in 1968, and Japan's Supreme Court upheld the ruling in 1980.
A major breakthrough came when Hakamada’s lawyers presented DNA evidence showing that bloodstains on the clothes linked to the crime did not belong to him.
Meanwhile, rights groups, including Amnesty International, celebrated the acquittal as a victory for justice, calling it a “pivotal moment” and urging Japan to abolish the death penalty.
