Photo/Illutration Hideyo Ogawa, left, head of Iwao Hakamada’s legal team, and Hakamada’s sister, Hideko, at a news conference in Shizuoka after the retrial concluded on May 22. (Yuichi Koyama)

SHIZUOKA--In likely her last opportunity to do so, Hideko Hakamada took the stand here and made an impassioned plea for a court to finally clear the name of her brother.

“We have fought for the past 58 years, and I am now 91 and my brother is 88,” she said at the Shizuoka District Court. “We are close to the end of our lives. I would like to ask the court to let Iwao spend his remaining days humanly.”

Her plea came on May 22 during the last hearing in the retrial of Iwao Hakamada, a former death row inmate who was convicted of murdering four members of a family and committing arson 58 years ago.

The ruling is scheduled for Sept. 26.

Given the verdicts in earlier retrials, the prevailing view among legal experts is that Hakamada will be found innocent.

Hideko, who has waged a tireless campaign for her brother, has emphasized that time is of the essence.

She told the court that Iwao is experiencing difficulty in communicating with people around him due to the mental illnesses he developed during his nearly half century of incarceration.

A former boxer, the defendant has been exempted from appearing in court for the retrial due to his mental health.

Hakamada was arrested in 1966 and convicted of murder and arson two years later. He has always maintained he is innocent, even after the Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in 1980.

He was sitting on death row when the Shizuoka District Court in 2014 granted him a retrial and ordered his release and a stay of execution.

The court acknowledged the possibility that key evidence used against Hakamada--five pieces of his supposed bloodstained clothing found in a miso tank about a year after his arrest—had been fabricated.

In seeking the retrial, the defense team presented scientific experiments showing that bloodstains would turn blackish after such a long time in a miso tank. The bloodstains in the evidence were reddish in color.

Hideko urged prosecutors not to argue the case in the retrial and allow her brother to move on with his life.

But they refused.

The retrial opened at the district court in October, and prosecutors again sought the death sentence for Hakamada.

The defendant’s health condition “is not a matter that should be considered in our pursuit of his death penalty, but the punishment should be imposed to befit the crime,” the prosecution said in its closing arguments on May 22.

Addressing the suggestion that evidence was fabricated or even planted, the prosecutors argued that it was impossible for police to prepare clothes resembling Hakamada’s for use as evidence.

They also reiterated experts’ opinion that bloodstains in clothing can remain reddish despite being immersed in a miso tank for more than a year.

In their closing arguments, the defense lawyers countered that Hakamada’s belongings, including his clothing, had been available to police to freely use after the killings.

The lawyers also said it was possible for police to come up with clothes that looked similar to those of the defendant, and that investigators had the opportunity to plant his clothes for use as evidence against him.

As for the crime, the defense team argued the victims were murdered by multiple perpetrators, not a single individual, pointing to the dozens of stab wounds left on the bodies of the victims.

“Hakamada was set up as the perpetrator by investigative authorities,” the defense said.

They asked the court to not only acquit the defendant but to also clearly acknowledge the foul play and illegal activity of the investigative authorities.

Hakamada’s retrial is only the fifth granted to convicted murderers in Japan’s postwar years.

In the preceding four retrials, the defendants were all found not guilty although prosecutors stuck to their original stance to seek the death penalty.

(This article was written by Kazufumi Kaneko and Yusuke Morishita.)

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For details of Hakamada’s trial and letters that he sent to his family while on death row for decades, check out https://www.asahi.com/special/hakamadaletters/en/.

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