A Japan­ese court found an 88-year-old for­mer box­er not guilty on Thurs­day af­ter a re­tri­al for a 1966 quadru­ple mur­der, re­vers­ing a de­ci­sion that made him the world’s longest-serv­ing death row in­mate.

Iwao Haka­ma­da’s ac­quit­tal by the Shizuo­ka Dis­trict Court makes him the fifth death row in­mate to be found not guilty in a re­tri­al in post­war Japan, where pros­e­cu­tors have a more than 99% con­vic­tion rate. The case could rekin­dle a de­bate around abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in Japan.

The court found that ev­i­dence was fab­ri­cat­ed and plant­ed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors and that Haka­ma­da was not the cul­prit, his lawyer Hideyo Ogawa said.

Af­ter the rul­ing and an ex­pla­na­tion were read out, his 91-year-old sis­ter Hideko Haka­ma­da walked out of the cour­t­house with a big smile, wel­comed by cheers and two big bou­quets of flow­ers to cel­e­brate the ac­quit­tal of her broth­er af­ter the 58-year le­gal bat­tle.

“Thank you, every­one, we won an ac­quit­tal,” she told a tele­vised news con­fer­ence. “When I heard the main sen­tence, it sound­ed al­most di­vine. I was so touched and could not stop cry­ing with joy.”

Haka­ma­da was con­vict­ed of mur­der in the 1966 killing of an ex­ec­u­tive and three of his fam­i­ly mem­bers, and set­ting fire to their home in cen­tral Japan. He was sen­tenced to death in 1968, but was not ex­e­cut­ed due to the lengthy ap­peal and re­tri­al process in Japan’s no­to­ri­ous­ly slow-paced crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

He spent 48 years be­hind bars — more than 45 of them on death row — mak­ing him the world’s longest-serv­ing death row in­mate, ac­cord­ing to the Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al.

Ogawa said he asked the pros­e­cu­tors not to ap­peal the case, as is pos­si­ble, but was told they have not de­cid­ed.

The lawyer al­so said the de­fense team is con­sid­er­ing fil­ing a suit against the gov­ern­ment, in part to learn more about the trou­bled in­ves­ti­ga­tion. If pros­e­cu­tors do not ap­peal and his ac­quit­tal is fi­nal­ized, Haka­ma­da would be en­ti­tled to seek com­pen­sa­tion.

It took 27 years for the top court to de­ny his first ap­peal for re­tri­al. His sec­ond ap­peal for a re­tri­al was filed in 2008 by his sis­ter.

That re­quest was grant­ed in 2014, when a court ruled there was ev­i­dence sug­gest­ing he was wrong­ly ac­cused. He was not cleared of the con­vic­tion, but he was re­leased from prison and al­lowed to await re­tri­al at home be­cause his poor health and age made him a low risk for es­cape.

But the case con­tin­ued to bounce among sev­er­al courts, un­til one fi­nal­ly ruled in his fa­vor in 2023, paving the way for the lat­est re­tri­al that be­gan in Oc­to­ber.

Fol­low­ing his ar­rest, Haka­ma­da ini­tial­ly de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tions, but then con­fessed. He lat­er said his con­fes­sion was forced dur­ing a vi­o­lent in­ter­ro­ga­tion by po­lice.

“I have noth­ing to do with the case … I am in­no­cent,” he wrote in his let­ter to his moth­er while on tri­al in 1967.

On Thurs­day, the court con­clud­ed that five pieces of blood­stained cloth­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tors claimed to have found hid­den in a tank of fer­ment­ed soy­bean paste, or miso, a year af­ter Haka­ma­da’s ar­rest must have been put there long af­ter the ar­rest.

The court cit­ed sci­en­tif­ic ex­per­i­ments that showed the blood­stains should not have been vis­i­ble on cloth­ing soaked in miso for a year. The rul­ing con­clud­ed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors, who had said Haka­ma­da wore the clothes dur­ing the crime, had ap­plied the blood­stains them­selves and plant­ed the cloth­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to de­fense lawyers and ear­li­er court rul­ings, the blood sam­ples did not match Haka­ma­da’s DNA, and trousers that pros­e­cu­tors sub­mit­ted as ev­i­dence were too small for him.

Thurs­day’s rul­ing al­so blamed the pros­e­cu­tors for forc­ing Haka­ma­da in­to a false con­fes­sion be­cause of an “in­hu­mane” in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

Ogawa, Haka­ma­da’s lawyer, praised the rul­ing as “ground­break­ing” for clear­ly stat­ing that the pros­e­cu­tion fab­ri­cat­ed key ev­i­dence at the be­gin­ning. “I be­lieve this rul­ing puts an end to the case. ... Now we must pre­vent pros­e­cu­tors from ap­peal­ing no mat­ter what.”

Af­ter Haka­ma­da was sen­tenced to death, he ex­pressed fear and anger at be­ing false­ly ac­cused.

“When I go to sleep in sound­less soli­tary cell every night, I some­times can­not help curs­ing God. I have not done any­thing wrong,” he wrote to his fam­i­ly. “What a cold-blood­ed act to to in­flict such cru­el­ty on me.”

Haka­ma­da, whose Chris­t­ian name is Paulo, was in­vit­ed to a Mass in Tokyo dur­ing Pope Fran­cis’ vis­it in 2019, five years af­ter his re­lease.

Sup­port­ers say Haka­ma­da’s near­ly half-cen­tu­ry de­ten­tion took a toll on his men­tal health. Most of his 48 years be­hind bars was spent in soli­tary con­fine­ment. The first two months af­ter Haka­ma­da’s re­lease, he kept pac­ing in­side the apart­ment, with­out even try­ing to go out­side, his sis­ter said.

One day, she asked him to help her with gro­ceries to get him to agree to leave the house. Go­ing out for a walk then be­came his dai­ly rou­tine, though to­day he is less able and he goes out by car, as­sist­ed by his sup­port­ers.

The case has drawn at­ten­tion to and crit­i­cism of Japan’s le­gal sys­tem. Japan Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Chair­per­son Reiko Fuchiga­mi urged the gov­ern­ment and par­lia­ment on Thurs­day to prompt­ly take steps to abol­ish the death penal­ty and low­er hur­dles for re­tri­als.

At a fi­nal hear­ing at the Shizuo­ka court in May be­fore Thurs­day’s de­ci­sion, pros­e­cu­tors again de­mand­ed the death penal­ty, trig­ger­ing crit­i­cism from rights groups that pros­e­cu­tors were try­ing to pro­long the tri­al.

Japan and the Unit­ed States are the on­ly two coun­tries in the Group of Sev­en ad­vanced na­tions that re­tain cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. A sur­vey by the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment showed an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of the pub­lic sup­ports ex­e­cu­tions.

Ex­e­cu­tions are car­ried out in se­cre­cy in Japan and pris­on­ers are not in­formed of their fate un­til the morn­ing they are hanged. In 2007, Japan be­gan dis­clos­ing the names of those ex­e­cut­ed and some de­tails of their crimes, but dis­clo­sures are still lim­it­ed.

Hideko Haka­ma­da has de­vot­ed around half of her life to her broth­er’s case. Be­fore Thurs­day’s rul­ing, she said she was in a nev­er-end­ing bat­tle.

“It is so dif­fi­cult to get a re­tri­al start­ed,” She told re­porters in Tokyo. “I’m sure there are oth­er peo­ple who have been wrong­ly ac­cused and cry­ing. … I want the crim­i­nal law re­vised so that re­tri­als are more eas­i­ly avail­able.”

By  MARI YA­M­AGUCHI

TOKYO (AP)