THE world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been acquitted more than 50 years after he was sentenced.
Former boxer Iwao Hakamada, 88, was jailed in 1968 for quadruple murder and has spent decades waiting to be executed.
GettyIwao Hakamada, 88, has been acquitted[/caption]
AP:Associated PressThe former boxer was jailed for murder[/caption]
But today, a Japanese court has ruled Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial – reversing an earlier wrongful conviction after decades on death row.
His acquittal by the Shizuoka District Court makes him the fifth death-row convict to be found not guilty in a retrial in postwar Japanese criminal justice.
Hakamada was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of a company manager and three of his family members, and setting a fire to their central Japan home.
He was sentenced to death in 1968, but was not executed due to lengthy appeals and the retrial process.
Hakamada spent 48 years behind bars most of them on death row making him the world’s longest-serving death row inmate.
It took 27 years for the top court to deny his first appeal for retrial.
His second appeal for a retrial was filed in 2008 by his sister Hideko Hakamada, now 91.t
The court finally ruled in his favor in 2023, paving the way for the latest retrial that began in October.