Man freed after 45 years on death row in Japan could go back to jail
Tokyo High Court rules against 2014 decision that conviction of Iwao Hakamada was unsafe
A Japanese man who was freed in 2014 after spending 45 years on death row could be sent back to prison after a court overturned the decision to grant him a retrial.
Iwao Hakamada was sentenced to hang in 1968 for the murders two years earlier of a company president, his wife and their two children in Shizuoka prefecture, central Japan.
A District Court in Shizuoka freed him in 2014 and ordered a retrial, saying police may have fabricated evidence, but the Tokyo High Court on Monday ruled against it.
It said the lower court had overstated the value of DNA evidence that cast doubt on the safety of his conviction, and that there were insufficient grounds to suspect that police had forged evidence.
Hakamada, an 82-year-old former professional boxer, told reporters from his home in Shizuoka that his conviction had always been unsafe. “It is all lies,” he said, according to Kyodo news.
His 85-year-old sister, Hideko, who has campaigned to prove her brother’s innocence, said the High Court ruling was “regrettable,” but added that his supporters would continue the fight to clear his name.
