Photo/Illutration Sakae Menda in 2006 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

In January 1949, when Japan was still under Allied occupation, the following headline appeared in a local Kyushu newspaper: "The culprit, a cash-strapped young man, was caught 19 days later." 

A photo of a young man with his head bowed accompanied the article.

The man, Sakae Menda, had been arrested over an attack that left four members of a family dead and two injured in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Prefecture, at the end of the previous year.

Menda endured brutal interrogations, according to a diary he wrote in prison and later published. He wrote that he was forced to confess by an interrogator who threatened to “break” his head with an “isshobin” (1.8-liter glass bottle for sake).

After his death sentence was finalized, Menda’s sixth request for a retrial led to his acquittal because his alibi was established. Menda was 23 years old when he was arrested and aged 57 at the time of his release.

Menda described his life as a death row inmate to a colleague, who spent many years covering this high-profile false conviction case.

While in prison, 70 or so fellow death row inmates were executed, Menda told my colleague. “The morning of the day of an execution is extremely eerie. It's so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Then, prison guards come in bursts and the prison cell is opened with a clang.”

Menda lived in constant fear he might be next.

The first time he flew on an aircraft after being acquitted, Menda had trouble buckling his seat belt since he didn't know how to use one.

But he had no trouble with karaoke. He had memorized the lyrics of many “enka” Japanese traditional-style popular ballads because the speakers in his prison blared out the songs each evening.

Driven by his harsh prison experiences, Menda was keen to support prisoners who were in the same situation.

“Human rights in Japan are like a rainbow,” Menda, who died recently at age 95, once said. “They look beautiful from a distance but actually lack substance.”

He spent 12,599 days in prison after being wrongfully convicted, a third of existence and what otherwise might have constituted its most beautiful moments.

Those of us who tend to think authority is always right should realize his repeated warnings were also directed at us.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 6

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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