Longest-serving death row inmate, Iwao Hakamata, was acquitted of the quadruple murder case after 57 years.
According to CNN, the Japanese court on Thursday, September 26, 2024, declared Hakamata not guilty in a retrial for the murder of his boss along with his wife and two teenage daughters.
The former boxer was wrongfully sentenced to death in 1968 after a pair of blood-stained trousers was found in a miso tank and allegedly forced confession.
But he recently granted a retrial over the suspicion that investigators planted the evidence.
Moreover, Judge Kunii Tsuneishi of the Shizuoka District Court ruled that the blood-stained clothing was planted and declared the 88-year-old innocent.
Tsuneishi said, “The court cannot accept the fact that the blood stain would remain reddish if it had been soaked in miso for more than a year. The bloodstains were processed and hidden in the tank by the investigating authorities after a considerable period of time since the incident.”
The judge declared, “Mr. Hakamata cannot be considered the criminal.”
Furthermore, although the court decision came as good news for Hakamata supporters, it has raised questions about the judicial system of Japan, as his sister Hideko said that decades of imprisonment have declined the mental health of the boxer, and now he is “living in his own world.”
