Japan’s Iwao Hakamata Found Not Guilty for 1966 Shizuoka Murders, Robbery; Judge Alludes to Fabrication of Evidence (UPDATE 2)

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:11 JST, September 26, 2024 (updated at 20:00 JST)

The Shizuoka District Court found Iwao Hakamata not guilty in his retrial on Thursday, reversing a previously finalized death penalty for the 1966 robbery and murder of four people in Shizuoka Prefecture.

This is the fifth case after World War II in which a retrial overturned a death sentence that had previously been finalized.

Hakamata, 88, was found guilty after five articles of clothing were discovered in a miso tank near the crime scene one year and two months after the incident. The articles were cited in the guilty ruling as the clothing Hakamata wore when the crimes were committed.

On Thursday, presiding Judge Koshi Kunii said the clothing was “processed and hidden by the investigative authorities,” suggesting that the evidence was fabricated.

The incident occurred on June 30, 1966. The house of a miso company executive in Shimizu — now Shimizu Ward in Shizuoka — was burned down, and the bodies of the 41-year-old executive; his wife, 39; their daughter, 17; and son, 14, were found.

After his arrest, Hakamata, who was employed by the company, confessed to the crime, but during trial he maintained his innocence. He was sentenced to death, and the sentence was finalized in 1980.

Hakamata filed a request for a retrial in 1981, which was dismissed, and another in 2008. The Shizuoka District Court granted his request in 2014, and Hakamata was released that year. His retrial started in 2023.

On Thursday, Hakamata’s sister Hideko, 91, attended the court session as a legal assistant on behalf of her brother, who has developed “detainment syndrome” due to his 48 years in detention.

Hideko said Hakamata had already finished breakfast before she left, and when she told him she was off to Shizuoka, he replied, “OK.”

It has been 35 years since a similar retrial was ruled on, in 1989, in the so-called Shimada case involving the 1954 murder of a young girl in Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture.

According to the district court, 502 people visited the court Thursday morning to get one of the 40 seats available for the general public.