Japan: Country’s longest-serving death row inmate secures retrial
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The highest court in Japan has endorsed a ruling granting the country’s longest-serving death row inmate a retrial.
Iwao Hakamada, 84, has been on death row for more than 50 years after he was convicted of robbing and murdering his boss as well as the man’s wife and two children.
He argues, however, that he confessed to the crime after being beaten by the police and that evidence was planted.
He was sentenced to death in 1968.
In 2014, however, a district court in the city of Shizuoka granted him a retrial. Prosecutors appealed, succeeding at Tokyo High Court.
The Supreme Court has since found in his favour and backed the retrial.
“The Supreme Court made a decision to uphold a retrial by overturning the decision by the Tokyo High Court to dismiss the request for retrial,” Mr Hakamada’s lawyer Yoshiyuki Todate wrote on his blog.
“The fact that a path for the resumption of a retrial was not cut off is very welcome. My hands are still shaking after hearing this. I’m really, really glad.”
Capital punishment enjoys widespread public support in Japan.
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