A Japanese court on Monday ordered a review of the trial of an 87-year-old man considered the world’s oldest death row inmate, nearly 60 years after his murder conviction.
Iwao Hakamada’s lawyers walked out of the Tokyo High Court on Monday after a brief hearing, waving banners demanding a new trial as their supporters chanted: “Free Hakamada, now.”
“I have been waiting for this day for 57 years and it has come,” said Hideko Hakamada, Iwao Hakamada’s sister and a leading supporter. “It’s a weight that I finally got rid of,” added Hideko Hakamada, 90.
Conviction in 1968 for four murders
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.
Iwao Hakamada had confessed to the crime after weeks of interrogation in custody, before retracting it. He has since maintained his innocence, 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 evidence and decided to offer him a new trial.
But in 2018, a new twist: On appeal from the prosecution, the Tokyo High Court questioned the reliability of the DNA evidence and overturned the 2014 decision, without Iwao Hakamada being returned to prison.
“reasonable doubt”
The Japanese Supreme Court then revoked at the end of 2020 the decision that prevented Iwao Hakamada from being tried again in an attempt to obtain his acquittal, news that his sister Hideko then welcomed as a “Christmas present”.
The prosecution’s case relied heavily on the bloody clothing, which turned up more than a year after the crime. But the DNA found on these clothes was not that of Iwao Hakamada.
Furthermore, according to his supporters, these clothes did not fit him properly and the bloodstains were too recent to be linked to the murders.
“There is no evidence other than clothing to identify Mr. Hakamada as the perpetrator of the crime, and it is clear that there is a reasonable doubt” of his guilt, the ministry’s president told the Tokyo High Court on Monday. Fumio Daizen, quoted by the public television channel NHK.
Japan is, along with the United States, one of the last industrialized and democratic countries to still resort to the death penalty, to which Japanese public opinion is overwhelmingly favourable.
psychological sequelae
Those close to Iwao Hakamada highlight the psychological scars that more than four decades in a cell have left him, fearing his execution by hanging every day.
His sister Hideko explained during a press conference on Monday that she never mentioned the trials with her brother. “I’m just telling him to take comfort, because we made a good decision,” she said. “I just need to make sure I can see the new trial begin.”
The process, however, could take several years if an extraordinary appeal is filed, a system against which the lawyers protest.
The Japan Bar Association welcomed Monday’s decision, “urging prosecutors to start proceedings for a new trial without appealing to the Supreme Court.”
Amnesty International hailed Monday’s decision as a “long-awaited opportunity to deliver justice.”
“Mr. Hakamada’s conviction was based on ‘confessions’ obtained by force and the other evidence against him raises serious doubts,” said Hideaki Nakagawa, director of the Japanese branch of this NGO.
Source: BFM TV
