An 87-year-old man believed to be the world's longest-serving death row inmate will be retried, according to a Japanese court ruling on Monday. Iwao Hakamada will therefore be the subject of a retrial, nearly sixty years after his first conviction. However, the process could take several years if a special appeal is filed.

"I have been waiting for this day for fifty-seven years and it has arrived," said Hideko Hakamada, Iwao Hakamada's sister and main supporter. His brother spent more than four decades on death row after he was sentenced to death in 1968 for the quadruple murder of his boss and three members of his family.

Confessions under duress?

The Japanese had confessed to the crime after weeks of interrogations in detention, before retracting his statement. He had maintained his innocence ever since, but the sentence was upheld in 1980. The former boxer was released in 2014 after a court admitted doubts about his guilt based on DNA tests and decided to offer him a new trial.

But in 2018, a new coup de théâtre: on appeal by the prosecutor's office, the Tokyo High Court had questioned the reliability of DNA tests and annulled the 2014 decision, without the suspect being sent back to prison. The Japanese Supreme Court then overturned at the end of 2020 the decision that prevented Iwao Hakamada from being tried again to try to obtain his acquittal.

'A reasonable doubt'

The prosecution's case was largely based on bloodied clothing, which appeared more than a year after the crime. But the DNA found on these clothes was not that of Iwao Hakamada. In addition, according to the man's supporters, these clothes were not his size and the blood stains were too recent to be linked to the murders.

"There is no evidence other than clothing identifying Iwao Hakamada as the perpetrator of the crime, and it is clear that there is a reasonable doubt" of his guilt, Tokyo High Court Chief Justice Fumio Daizen was quoted as saying by public broadcaster NHK on Monday.

Public opinion in favour of capital punishment

Japan is, with the United States, one of the last industrialized and democratic countries still to use the death penalty, to which Japanese public opinion is largely in favour. The Japan Bar Association welcomed Monday's decision, "urging prosecutors to begin proceedings for a retrial without appealing to the Supreme Court."



Amnesty International hailed the decision as a "long-overdue opportunity to deliver justice". "Iwao Hakamada's conviction was based on a forced 'confession' and there are serious doubts about the other evidence against him," said Hideaki Nakagawa, director of the NGO's Japan branch.

  • World
  • Japan
  • Prison
  • Death penalty
  • Lawsuit