SHIZUOKA--“The doors to freedom have opened.”

Those were the words that 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada and his sister had been longing to hear during the nearly half-century he spent on death row.

Hakamada, however, was unable to attend the retrial that acquitted him due to the frail state of his mental health, triggered by his decades of incarceration in solitary confinement anxiously awaiting his “date” with the hangman.

Were it not for the persistence of his sister, Hideko, 91, the outcome could have been very different.

She believed wholeheartedly in his innocence and waged a campaign over much of her adult life with her brother and his lawyers to have him exonerated and set free.

They are now hoping prosecutors will not delay justice any longer and drop any plans to appeal the Sept. 26 ruling by the Shizuoka District Court.

Hakamada was found guilty in 1968 of the June 1966 slayings of his boss, a senior official of a miso manufacturer for whom he was working, the man’s wife and their two children. 

FINALLY ...

At a few minutes past 2 p.m. on Sept. 26, Hideko was in room 201 of the Shizuoka District Court wearing a white jacket that symbolized her brother’s innocence.

Presiding Judge Koshi Kunii declared Hakamada not guilty.

Hideko was standing in the witness stand on behalf of Iwao.

She kept nodding while listening to Kunii as he read his ruling.

When she returned to the defendant’s side of the courtroom, Hideko wore a broad smile, and her eyes were tinged red and swollen.

After he finished, Kunii encouraged Hideko to take the witness stand again and told her, “We are truly sorry for taking such a long time.”

At a news conference afterward, Hideko told reporters: “The presiding judge’s words, ‘the defendant is not guilty,’ sounded divine to me. I was so impressed and happy to hear them, I couldn’t stop my tears. Thank you so much.”

Iwao and Hideko were born near Lake Hamanako, western Shizuoka Prefecture. Iwao was the youngest of six siblings and Hideko was the second youngest.

As only three years separated them in age, they were close to each other from early on.

START OF THE NIGHTMARE

Hideko’s life changed dramatically when she was 33.

Iwao was arrested, and two years later he was handed the death sentence for the quadruple killings.

A few months after this, their mother died of illness.

Hideko’s life as “a family member of a death row inmate” had begun.

She and her family never stopped believing in Iwao’s innocence, even though people around them spoke ill of them.

After their mother and brothers died, Hideko began to support Iwao.

At the same time, she found herself gradually withdrawing from society.

She went almost every month to the Tokyo Detention House where Iwao was held.

He gradually became mentally unstable and refused to meet with her.

But still she went to the detention house.

“Your family do not give up on you,” is what she tried to convey to him by continuing to visit.

After Iwao’s death sentence was finalized, Hideko lived in fear, like her brother, that each day would be his last.

KEEPING HER SANITY

Working proved to be her salvation. She had worked at a food company for about 40 years, using her knowledge of accounting that she learned from age 15, while she lived on the second floor of the company’s building.

She also took a job at a lawyers’ office, and only quit when she turned 81.

Hideko decided to build a three-story apartment and took out an 18-year loan in her 60s.

“I have to do something for myself, not only for Iwao,” she said.

Twenty years later, she was living with her brother in one of the rooms of the apartment.

Iwao was released in 2014, and he moved in with her.

He was 78 at the time and mentally disturbed. It was difficult to communicate with him.

Hideko just accepted him as he was.

The fight on which she had spent so much of her adult life reached a turning point on Sept. 26.

It was the day the presiding judge told her: “The doors to freedom have opened.”

At the same time, Kunii told her it would take a little more time to finalize the ruling of her brother’s innocence.

“I am not thinking that I will be happy if only Iwao was saved. There must be no more false accusations,” Hideko said.

She is determined to continue fighting.

Hideko is continuing to hold gatherings of her supporters and attending events aimed at encouraging an amendment of retrial laws by giving speeches from Hokkaido to Kyushu.

“I can’t ask to bring Iwao back to who he was, because that is impossible,” Hideko said. “But I wish for his 48 years in detention to be put to some meaningful use.”

(This article was written by Hideki Aota and Miho Tanaka.)