World’s Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate, 88, Acquitted 56 Years After Murder Sentence

The world’s longest-serving death row prisoner has been acquitted by a Japanese court, more than 50 years after his 1968 murder conviction.

On Thursday, September 26, the Shizuoka District Court ruled that 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial initiated by the former boxer and his supporters a decade ago.

“The court finds the defendant innocent,” said Judge Koshi Kunii.

Hakamada was sentenced to death in 1968 after being convicted of murdering his boss, his wife, and their two teenage children, as well as setting their home on fire two years earlier.

He spent 46 years on death row—believed to be the longest time any prisoner has spent on death row worldwide—until his release in 2014, when new evidence emerged and a retrial was ordered.

Hakamada has consistently maintained his innocence, claiming that investigators coerced him into confessing and that police fabricated evidence.

There has been no immediate decision on whether prosecutors will appeal the verdict, which was reported by Kyodo news agency and other Japanese media outlets.

Hakamada’s defense lawyers have urged prosecutors not to challenge the ruling, considering his age.

Judge Koshi Kunii acknowledged that three pieces of evidence had been fabricated, including Hakamada’s “confession” and items of clothing that prosecutors alleged he was wearing at the time of the murders.

“Investigators tampered with clothes by getting blood on them,” the ruling said, and criticised the use of “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement … by imposing mental and physical pain”.