The world's longest-serving death row prisoner hears from a Japanese court if he will again face execution or finally be acquitted, a decade after obtaining a retrial of his murder conviction.

The world's longest-serving death row prisoner has been acquitted by a Japanese court, more than half a century after his 1968 murder conviction.

After almost half a century on death row Iwao Hakamada, 88, has been acquitted of murder.

A Japanese court ruled Thursday that an 88-year-old former boxer was not guilty in a retrial for a 1966 quadruple murder, reversing an earlier decision that made him the world's longest-serving death row inmate.

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 at the age of 88.

Iwao Hakamada was first convicted in 1968 for murdering his boss at work's family.

Now 88 and in delicate health, Iwao Hakamada was 30 when he was originally sentenced to death for a murder in 1968