SHIZUOKA—A court here on Sept. 26 found former death row inmate Iwao Hakamada innocent of multiple murder, overturning a conviction based on “fabricated” evidence that put him behind bars for nearly half a century.

The Shizuoka District Court agreed with the defense’s arguments and evidence presented in the retrial that showed Hakamada, now 88, did not kill four members of a family in 1966.

Hakamada was not present in court to hear what he had been fighting for since his arrest 58 years ago.

The court exempted him from testifying in the retrial hearings because of the mental illnesses he developed behind bars while waiting for his execution date.

In declaring Hakamada’s innocence, Presiding Judge Koshi Kunii recognized that three pieces of evidence were fabricated by investigative authorities to gain a conviction.

One concerned the prosecution’s record that Hakamada had confessed to the crimes.

The judge said it was “effectively a fabrication” because the admission was obtained through interrogations carried out in an inhumane manner while breaching the suspect’s right to remain silent.

The judge also referred to bloodstained clothes that Hakamada had supposedly worn during the crimes.

Kunii sided with the defense in saying that the investigative authorities tampered with evidence by smearing blood on the clothing.

Investigators had also presented as evidence a piece of cloth discovered in Hakamada’s home that was identical to the fabric in the bloodstained trousers.

Kunii said this evidence was also fabricated.

Although courts and legal experts had long pressed for a retrial, prosecutors appealed or filed objections to the decisions, and the retrial only started in October last year.

Prosecutors tried to convict Hakamada again at the retrial, and they could appeal the Sept. 26 court ruling.

Hakamada is the fifth condemned convict in postwar Japan who has been declared not guilty in a retrial. The retrials of the first four all took place in the 1980s.

Prosecutors have not appealed any retrial rulings in recent years that have exonerated the defendants, according to legal experts.

Hakamada’s 91-year-old sister, Hideko, his supporters and his defense team are strongly urging prosecutors not to appeal and allow the ruling to be finalized at the earliest possible date.

When the retiral opened in October, Hideko, who has spent much of her life fighting for the freedom of her brother, took the stand and made a fervent plea for justice while Hakamada is still alive.

“On behalf of my brother, I plead not guilty,” she said.

Hakamada, a former professional boxer who was an employee of a miso manufacturing company in Shizuoka Prefecture, was arrested in August 1966 on suspicion of murdering a company executive, his wife and two of their children and setting a fire at their house two months earlier.

Hakamada was 30 at the time.

Despite his initial denial, he “confessed” to the crimes after nearly three weeks of brutal police interrogations, his defense team said.

But he maintained his innocence once his trial opened. Two years later, the Shizuoka District Court found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

The death sentence was finalized in 1980, when the Supreme Court turned down Hakamada’s appeal.

After the top court’s refusal to hear his case, Hakamada’s defense team filed the first request for a retrial in 1981, only to be denied by the Supreme Court in 2008.

The second request for a retrial was filed in 2008, with the defense raising serious doubts about the authenticity of the prosecution’s key evidence against Hakamada--the five pieces of bloodstained clothing found in a miso tank a year after his arrest.

Prosecutors said the clothing was worn by Hakamada when he committed the crime.

But the defense team pointed out that the bloodstains, shown in photos, were reddish.

“The clothes would turn blackish, not reddish, after they were immersed in a miso tank for a year,” the defense argued, citing findings of scientific experiments and an analysis by experts. “They do not belong to Hakamada.”

The Tokyo High Court sided with the defense and ordered the lower court to open a retrial last year.

The high court also went as far as to say it is “highly likely” that the evidence against Hakamada was fabricated by investigative authorities.

In the retrial that continued through May, debate centered on the change in color of the bloodstains in the clothing.

Prosecutors insisted that the possibility of the bloodstains retaining a reddish hue cannot be ruled out, quoting a report on a joint analysis conducted by forensic scientists commissioned by the prosecution.

They also dismissed suspicions of investigative authorities faking and planting evidence as “unrealistic.”

“The defendant broke into the crime scene to steal money and killed the four to cover up his act,” prosecutors said at the retrial.

A retrial is difficult to gain unless potentially exculpatory evidence is presented to the court.

Past precedents show that when a retrial is granted, it effectively serves as a ruling that finds the defendant innocent.

Hakamada has been living with Hideko in Shizuoka Prefecture since 2014, when the district court suspended his execution and ordered his retrial and release.

＊＊＊

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/.