Explained: Who is Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest-serving death row inmate?

A Japanese court has ordered a retrial for an 87-year-old ex-boxer dubbed the ‘world’s longest-serving’ death row inmate. Iwao Hakamada, who spent nearly 50 years in prison, is now set to receive a fresh trial. Let’s take a closer look at Hakamada: Who is he? According to BBC, Hakamada was in 1966 accused of robbing and murdering his employer and his wife and two children at a factory in Shizuoka. Hakamada was a live-in employee at the plant, as per The Guardian.

The victims were found stabbed to death after a fire gutted their home in Shizuoka.

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Hakamada confessed to the murders but asserted his innocence when his trial began.  Hakamada was convicted of the murder in that same year and in 1968 sentenced to death. While Hakamada attempted to retract his confession, he had little luck. In 1980, Japan’s Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty verdict. According to Amnesty, Hakamada then spent decades on death row – mostly in solitary confinement. “I pray to Jesus Christ and appeal for my innocence from 9 until 10:30 every night. During this prayer time, I can be free from suffering. Thanks to God’s love and blessing, I exist and cry for the truth and walk toward tomorrow,” Hakamada wrote while in prison. After a prolonged battle, a district court in the central city of Shizuoka granted a retrial in 2014, finding investigators could have planted evidence. The court then ordered a retrial and freed him while the case proceeded. Hakamada, then 78, was released from prison. He has since become a symbol of a movement to oppose the death penalty in Japan. However, in 2018, Tokyo’s High Court overturned the lower court ruling four years later. The case was then sent to the Supreme Court on appeal. There, judges ruled in 2020 that the Tokyo High Court must reconsider its decision. But all this time, Hakamada has remained under sentence of death. Documents show Hakamada beaten, bullied Official documents show Hakamada had been questioned, beaten and bullied by police for more than 10 hours daily without an attorney present. The police presented as evidence blood-stained clothing found in the vats of soy bean paste, although the vats had been thoroughly searched before. One key piece of evidence used to convict him was a set of blood-stained clothes that emerged more than a year after the crime.

Supporters say the clothes did not fit him and the bloodstains were too vivid given the time elapsed.

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DNA tests found no link between Hakamada, the clothes and the blood but the High Court rejected the testing methods. One of the judges who convicted Hakamada acknowledged later that he had serious questions about the case from the start. The judge with misgivings attempted suicide over his feelings of guilt. He was later baptized and took the same baptismal name as Hakamada’s, Paulo, and added Miki, the name of a Japanese martyr. In November 2019, Hakamada was among some 50,000 people greeting Pope Francis as he entered Tokyo Dome stadium to celebrate Mass. Hakamada, who converted to Catholicism during his decades on death row, was invited to the Mass and was there with his sister, organizers said. ‘Waiting for this day for 57 years’ Lawyers for Iwao Hakamada left the court after a brief session and unfurled banners reading “retrial” as supporters shouted “Free Hakamada now!” “I was waiting for this day for 57 years and it has come,” said Hakamada’s sister Hideko, 90, who has campaigned tirelessly on her brother’s behalf. [caption id=“attachment_12285622” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Hideko Hakamada, center left, sister of Iwao Hakamada, celebrates following a court decision at Tokyo Hight Court in Tokyo Monday. AP[/caption] “Finally a weight has been lifted from my shoulders,” she said. National broadcaster NHK said the court’s presiding judge Fumio Daizen cast doubt on the credibility of the clothes as evidence. “There is no evidence other than the clothes that could determine Hakamada was the perpetrator, so it is clear that reasonable doubt arises,” NHK quoted him as saying. Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the United States to retain capital punishment, which is always carried out by hanging. The death penalty still enjoys broad public support and debate on the issue is rare. Supporters say nearly 50 years of detention, mostly in solitary confinement with the ever-present threat of execution, took a heavy toll on Hakamada’s mental health. He told AFP in 2018 he felt he was “fighting a bout every day”. His sister Hideko told a news conference later on Monday she does not talk about the trials with him. “I will only tell him to rest assured, because we got a good result,” she said. “Now, I just need to make sure I can see the retrial begin.” The process for a retrial could take years if a special appeal is filed, however, and lawyers have been protesting against this system. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations welcomed Monday’s ruling but said in a statement it “strongly demands prosecutors swiftly start the retrial process without issuing a special appeal to the Supreme Court”. “We cannot afford any further delay to remedy Mr Hakamada, who has an advanced age of 87 and suffers mental and physical conditions after 47 years of physical restraint,” association head Motoji Kobayashi said.

Rights group Amnesty International also welcomed the decision as a “long-overdue chance to deliver some justice”.

Hideaki Nakagawa, Director of Amnesty International Japan, in a statement said, “This ruling presents a long-overdue chance to deliver some justice to Hakamada Iwao, who has spent more than half a century under sentence of death despite the blatant unfairness of the trial that saw him convicted. “Hakamada’s conviction was based on a forced ‘confession’ and there are serious doubts about the other evidence used against him. Yet at the age of 87, he has still not been given the opportunity to challenge the verdict that has kept him under the constant threat of the gallows for most of his life. “Now that the Tokyo High Court has acknowledged Hakamada’s right to the fair trial he was denied more than 50 years ago, it is imperative that prosecutors allow this to happen. “That means they must not appeal against today’s ruling and prolong the limbo Hakamada has been in since his ‘temporary release’ nine years ago. Rather, they must allow this retrial to take place while Hakamada is still able to participate in the proceedings.” With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.