An 88-year-old man, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate, has been acquitted by a Japanese court after it was revealed that the evidence used to convict him was fabricated.
Iwao Hakamada had been sentenced to death in 1968 for the murder of his boss, his boss’s wife, and their two teenage children, remaining on death row for nearly 50 years.
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Recent suspicions arose that investigators may have planted evidence during his trial, leading to the reopening of his case and the granting of a retrial.
After 46 years on death row, the toll on Hakamada’s mental health left him unable to attend his acquittal, which was made possible by new DNA tests and the discovery of tampered evidence.
