JAPAN – When a court declared Iwao Hakamata innocent in September, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate seemed unable to comprehend, much less savour the moment. “I told him he was acquitted, and he was silent,” Hideko Hakamata, his 91-year-old sister, tells the BBC at her home in Hamamatsu, Japan. “I couldn’t tell whether he understood or not.” Hideko had been fighting for her brother’s retrial ever since he was convicted of quadruple murder in 1968. In September 2024, at the age of 88, he was finally acquitted – ending Japan’s longest running legal saga. Mr Hakamata’s case is remarkable. But it also shines a light on the systemic brutality underpinning Japan’s justice system, where death row inmates are only notified of their hanging a few hours in advance, and spend years unsure whether each day will be their last.
Human rights experts have long condemned such treatment as cruel and inhuman, saying it exacerbates prisoners’ risk of developing a serious mental illness. And more than half a lifetime spent in solitary confinement, waiting to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit, took a heavy toll on Mr Hakamata.
Since being granted a retrial and released from prison in 2014, he has lived under Hideko’s close care. When we arrive at the apartment he is on his daily outing with a volunteer group that supports the two elderly siblings. He is anxious around strangers, Hideko explains, and has been in “his own world” for years. “Maybe it can’t be helped,” she says. “This is what happens when you are locked up and crammed in a small prison cell for more than 40 years. “They made him live like an animal.” (BBC)

Photo: Iwao Hakamata has been living with his sister, Hideko, since being granted a rare retrial in 2014.