Hideko Hakamada broke into tears on March 13 and mustered up the strength of her 90-year-old body to celebrate in front of the Tokyo High Court.

“I’ve waited for this day for 57 years,” she told supporters.

The court had just granted a retrial for her brother, Iwao, who had been sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering four people in 1966.

Iwao, 87, was conspicuously absent from the celebration of the milestone in the siblings’ decades-long quest for justice.

“He lives in a world of delusions,” Hideko said.

Iwao developed mental illnesses during his nearly 35 years on death row.

The Shizuoka District Court ordered his release in 2014. He now lives with his older sister in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture.

Iwao believes he has already won a not-guilty verdict, she said, and he went out for a drive in the city with his supporters on March 13, as he often does.

Hideko said that she and Iwao at times talk past each other.

She not only remains his spokesperson, but she is also his biggest supporter.

It is a task she took up even before their lives were turned upside down in 1966.

LOOKING OUT FOR YOUNGER BROTHER

Hideko was born in 1933 as the second youngest of six siblings in present-day Hamamatsu.

Since she was a child, she has taken care of her laid-back younger brother.

Hideko was 12 when World War II ended. After graduating from school, she began working as a clerk at a tax office.

She learned how to type and use an abacus to continue her job at the male-dominated workplace.

She wed when she was 22, but the marriage lasted for only a year.

“I felt better off on my own,” she said. “I spent life like there was no tomorrow.”

When Iwao, who was good at sports, took up boxing, she went to see his matches.

But the unthinkable then happened.

Iwao was arrested in 1966 on suspicion of murdering four family members in what is now Shizuoka city.

One of the victims was an executive of a miso manufacturing company that had employed Iwao.

Hideko was in total disbelief.

“Iwao is gentle and incapable” of committing the crime, she thought to herself.

She and other siblings scrambled to come up with money to cover Iwao’s legal expenses.

Their mother, who attended every session of his trial, died in 1968, after the Shizuoka District Court sentenced Iwao to death.

Hideko’s brothers and sisters had their own families to look after, so she took it upon herself to support her brother.

“I am single and should take over my mother’s wishes to help out Iwao,” Hideko recalled of her decision back then.

Although she never wavered in her conviction that her brother was innocent, supporting her condemned brother took a toll on her life.

She felt alone, and it seemed that everyone, except Hakamada family members, believed Iwao was the killer.

When she worked as an accountant for a food company, she remained largely in just one building that housed her office and company accommodations.

She shuttled back and forth between the office and the housing to keep a low profile, and only shopped at night.

“I lived a life of trying not to catch anyone’s attention,” she said.

She often woke up in the middle of the night, thinking about Iwao. She ended up depending on alcohol to fall asleep, and heavy drinking became a part of her life.

But that changed 10 years or so after the 1966 arrest. Iwao’s former schoolmates had started a campaign to spread support for him and gain his freedom.

“I needed to get it together,” Hideko told herself. She kicked her drinking habit and moved forward.

WORDS, ACTIONS BECAME STRANGE

Hideko traveled to the capital to see her brother at the Tokyo Detention House whenever she had a chance.

She noticed that his words and actions became strange when the Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in 1980.

At one time, Iwao insisted that he had no sister, and Hideko could not see him for about three and half years as a result.

She still went to the Tokyo Detention House once a month just to let him know that she came to see him.

“I wanted him to know that his family had not abandoned him,” she said.

Her whole life became revolved around activities to win a retrial for Iwao and to clear his name. And she began making preparations for the day Iwao would finally be released.

In 1994, she took out loans to buy a three-story apartment building that she rented out. She figured that the rent payments would provide the siblings with income when they got old.

Hideko moved into the apartment building when she was 79 after repaying all of the loans.

About two years later, in 2014, Iwao joined her after he was ordered released by the Shizuoka District Court.

“It was like a dream came true,” Hideko said.

But prosecutors appealed the district court’s decision, and the retrial decision was stuck in the legal system.

Prosecutors could also challenge the March 13 decision to hold a retrial.

“I am ready to fight even if prosecutors appeal the court decision,” Hideko said at a news conference later that day.

Hideko has been fighting for decades to gain a retrial to overturn Iwao’s conviction and give him “true freedom.” She is not one to be shaken by the actions by prosecutors.

Last month, on her 90th birthday, Iwao bought his sister a pink sweater as a gift.

She said she rarely talks about the case with Iwao because the topic makes him uncomfortable.

But she said that when she tells him about the high court’s decision to grant a retiral, she will say, “Relax, we had a good result.”

(This article was written by Yuri Murakami and Akari Uozumi.)