The world’s longest-serving death row prisoner was acquitted on Thursday, more than half a century after his murder conviction when a Japanese court ruled that evidence had been fabricated.
Former boxer Iwao Hakamada, now 88 years old, was unable to attend the court due to his ailing health.
His retrial was granted a decade ago after a long campaign by supporters.
Hakamada, who spent 46 years on death row after being convicted in 1968 of robbing and killing his boss, the man’s wife, and their two teenage children, was declared innocent by the judge.
His 91-year-old sister Hideko, who often speaks for him, expressed gratitude to the supporters outside the Shizuoka District Court, close to tears with her voice cracking.
The ruling highlighted that “investigators tampered with clothes by getting blood on them,” which they then hid in a tank of miso, or fermented soybean paste. It also criticized the use of “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement by imposing mental and physical pain.”
“The prosecution’s records were obtained by effectively infringing on the defendant’s right to remain silent, under circumstances extremely likely to elicit a false confession,” the ruling said.
Hundreds of people queued in the morning to try to secure a seat for the verdict in a murder saga that has gripped the nation and sparked scrutiny of Japan’s justice system.
Prosecutors have two weeks to appeal, according to Japanese media.
Hideko told a post-trial news conference that the not guilty verdict had “sounded divine”.
She wore a white jacket and, asked before the verdict if it symbolised her brother’s innocence, said she had deliberately avoided dark colours.
Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the United States to retain capital punishment, a policy that has broad public support.
