The man believed to be the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been acquitted 58 years after being arrested and charged with a murder. Iwao Hakamada heard his fate on September 26, 2024, when Japan’s Shizuoka District Court announced the verdict in his retrial, acquitting him.
Hakamada was accused of murdering a family of four in 1966, and found guilty in 1968, reported the BBC. The family consisted of his boss, the boss’ wife, and their two teenage children.
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Per BBC, it was found the the evidence used against Hakamada had been fabricated in the initial trial. NHK World Japan reported that the judge in the retrial found investigators on the original case had fabricated three pieces of evidence. Hakamada, now 88, had maintained his innocence for all of these years.
Hakamada couldn’t attend his hearings due to a mental illness he’d “developed behind bars,” reported People. But over 500 people were present when he was acquitted, as Hakamada’s case is one of Japan’s longest and most famous legal controversies.
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His sister, 91-year-old Hideko, had been fighting for her brother’s freedom all along.
When the retrial was first granted, she said it felt like “a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.” Hakamada had been living under her care since 2014, when he was freed from jail and granted the retrial.
When she heard “not guilty” she said, “I was so moved and happy, I couldn’t stop crying.”
