Prosecutors Won’t Appeal Japan Man’s Acquittal Over 1966 Murders; Former Death Row Prisoner Iwao Hakamata Free of Charges

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:39 JST, October 8, 2024

Prosecutors on Tuesday said they would not appeal the Shizuoka District Court ruling acquitting Iwao Hakamata over a 1966 murder and robbery.

Now 88 years old, the former death row prisoner was acquitted in his retrial by the district court on Sept. 26 — 58 years after he was arrested. It was the fifth case since World War II in which a retrial has overturned a death sentence that had previously been finalized.

Hakamata was arrested in 1966 over the robbery and murder of four family members in Shizuoka Prefecture. His death sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in 1980.

He was released in 2014 after 48 years in prison, when the district court ruled there should be a retrial.