World's longest-serving death row inmate, 88, acquitted after facing hanging for 50 years

Ex-boxer Iwao Hakamada spent almost half a century on death row after being wrongly convicted in 1968 for murdering his boss's family, but was declared innocent at a court in Japan on Thursday

The world's longest serving death row inmate has been acquitted of a murder conviction from nearly 60 years ago.

Former boxer Iwao Hakamada was cleared on Thursday after a court in Japan held a retrial for the murder of his then-boss and the man's wife and two children. Now 88 and in delicate health, Hakamada was 30 when he was originally sentenced to death for the killing back in 1968.

His retrial was obtained 10 years ago following sufficient support and freed following 56 years on death row, and was declared innocent on Thursday. He was pictured leaving the court in Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, defiant alongside his 91-year-old sister Hideko.

Hakamada was accused of the murders after helping extinguish a fire at his boss' home in June 1966, with their bodies found stabbed to death inside and around ¥200,000 (£16,000 in today's money) in cash stolen. He was arrested based on a small amount of blood found on a pair of his pyjamas and a confession following 264 hours of interrogation in which he was not allowed water or toilet breaks and claims he was physically beaten.

He later retracted his confession at trial and has maintained his innocence throughout his years imprisonment. In 2011, he was declared the longest serving death row inmate by Guinness World Records.

His conviction was upheld in 1980 by the highest court in Japan, but in March 2014 he was freed pending a retrial following new grounds that blood-stained clothes found in a tank of miso at a plant where he was working a year later, which formed central prosecuting evidence had been planted.

For years, however, Hakamada’s lawyers argued that the DNA recovered from the clothes did not match his, raising the possibility that the items belonged to someone else. The lawyers further suggested that police could have fabricated the evidence, with judge Hiroaki Murayama ruling the clothes "were not those of the defendant” in 2014.

Prolonged proceedings meant it took until last year for the retrial to begin. Besides finding Hakamada innocent on Thursday, the judge also concluded that prosecutors' key evidence was fabricated.

He is one of five death row inmates in Japan to have retrials ordered, the extremely high hurdles for which have also prompted legal experts to call for a revision to the system. Hakamada has been living under the care of his sister since 2014, when he was freed from jail and granted the retrial.

Queues formed outside the court on Thursday to hear the verdict, before Judge Koshi Kunii declared: "The court finds the defendant innocent." Supporter Atsushi Zukeran, who attended in support, said following the landmark decision that Hakamada's case was "a painful reminder of how Japan's criminal justice system must change".

Wearing a 'Free Hakamada Now' tshirt, Mr Zukeran said he "wouldn't be able to celebrate the acquittal entirely" given how long the case has been stretched out. Teppei Kasai, from Human Rights Watch, told AFP the case was "just one of countless examples of Japan's so-called 'hostage justice' system".

He said: "Suspects are forced to confess through long and arbitrary periods of detention' and there is often 'intimidation during interrogation." Hakamada's sister Hideko has long called for his release. Last year, when the retrial commenced, she expressed relief and said "finally a weight has been lifted from my shoulders"

As of December last year, some 107 prisoners remained on death row in Japan, where they are given just a few hours' notice before being hanged. Along with the United States, Japan is the only G7 country that still imposes capital punishment, with death row prisoners being notified of their hanging just a few hours in advance.