Photo/Illutration Lawyers for Iwao Hakamata enter the Shizuoka District Court to file a defamation lawsuit on Sept. 11 in Shizuoka. (Takahiro Takizawa)

SHIZUOKA—Former death-row inmate Iwao Hakamata has sued the government, saying a prosecutor general defamed his character after he was acquitted in a retrial that he had been fighting for decades to gain.

The lawsuit, filed with the Shizuoka District Court on Sept. 11, seeks 5.5 million yen ($37,300) in damages plus an apology to Hakamata, 89, posted on the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office website.

Hakamata was sentenced to death over the 1966 murders of four members of a family in Shizuoka Prefecture.

In the retrial, the Shizuoka District Court in September last year acquitted Hakamata, agreeing with arguments that investigative authorities likely fabricated evidence to gain the murder conviction in the 1960s.

In October 2024, Naomi Unemoto, the prosecutor general, released a statement to announce that prosecutors would not appeal the court’s ruling.

In the statement, Unemoto apologized for the long period during which Hakamata’s legal status “had been unstable.”

However, she also criticized the Shizuoka District Court’s acquittal, saying it was “utterly unacceptable and should be appealed to obtain a ruling from a higher court.”

In the lawsuit, Hakamata’s defense team said Unemoto’s criticisms implied that “the killer of the four people is Hakamata.”

They also noted that she dedicated most of the statement to repeating similar criticisms about the ruling.

“(The statement) is unacceptable as it defames Hakamata and constitutes contempt of the court that handed down the acquittal,” Hideyo Ogawa, a lawyer who represents Hakamata, said at a news conference after the lawsuit was filed.

Hakamata’s sister, Hideko, 92, led the long battle to clear his name, particularly after he developed mental disorders during his incarceration.

In a video released on Sept. 11, Hideko said, “Professionally, I think (Unemoto) may have felt she had to say something like that.”

The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it had not received the complaint.

Hakamata’s legal team is preparing to file another damages suit on Oct. 9 under the State Compensation Law, seeking to hold police and prosecutors accountable for the wrongful conviction.