Photo/Illutration Shoji Sakurai (Photo by Takeshi Iwashita)

Shoji Sakurai, who was acquitted after spending 29 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, died of rectum cancer on Aug. 23. He was 76.

Sakurai passed away at a hospital in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, according to his wife, Keiko.

As an activist opposed to wrongful convictions, Sakurai called for reform in police procedures and the legal system, and for public support for those falsely accused of a crime.

Last year, a documentary film about his life, “Ore no Kinenbi” (My anniversary), hit cinemas nationwide.

Sakurai and his friend Takao Sugiyama were arrested in 1967 on robbery and murder charges in Tone, Ibaraki Prefecture. Sakurai was 20 at the time.

The pair confessed to the murder under duress after a long interrogation by police and were indicted for the crime despite a lack of physical evidence.

Their life sentences were finalized by the Supreme Court in 1978. They were not released on parole until 1996.

To prove his innocence in the so-called Fukawa murder case, Sakurai filed appeals for a retrial on two occasions.

Mito District Court’s Tsuchiura branch reopened the case in 2005, admitting there was a high possibility that Sakurai and Sugiyama’s confessions were inconsistent with the condition of the dead body.

Both men were handed not-guilty verdicts in 2011.

Even after being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2019, Sakurai continued his fight for justice and won a lawsuit against the state in 2021 for compensation for his wrongful imprisonment.

His decades-long quest for justice won him admiration and support from across the country.

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