Former Death Row Inmate Hakamata’s Acquittal Final; Japanese Prosecutors Abandon Right to Appeal

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:38 JST, October 9, 2024

Former death row inmate Iwao Hakamata’s acquittal over the murder of four people in 1966 was finalized Wednesday as the Shizuoka District Public Prosecutors Office abandoned their right to appeal the district court’s ruling.

The prosecutors said Tuesday they would not appeal and had until Thursday to do so.

The district court acquitted 88-year-old Hakamata on Sept. 26 in a retrial that began in October last year.

Hakamata’s filed a second request for a retrial in 2008. He was released in 2014 after the Shizuoka District Court decided to grant his request and the Tokyo High Court upheld the decision for a retrial in March last year.

Takayoshi Tsuda, the chief of the Shizuoka prefectural police headquarters, apologized on Wednesday. “I am sorry that Hakamata has been in a legally unstable situation for so long,” Tsuda told reporters on Wednesday.

Tsuda added he intends to apologize directly to Hakamata. “I would like to discuss with him and the related people on how [to convey an apology.]

In the acquittal ruling, the district court strongly criticized investigators, saying that three pieces of evidence, including a cloth that was said to have been worn at the time the crime was committed, “were fabricated.

“The ruling is completely unacceptable, and we could have appealed it to a higher court,” Prosecutor General Naomi Unemoto said in a statement. However, the prosecutor general also offered an apology. “As the prosecution, I am sorry that Hakamata has been in an unstable situation for so long.”

In 1966, the bodies of four family members were found at a miso company executive’s residence in the city of Shimizu, now Shimizu Ward in Shizuoka City, in Shizuoka Prefecture. Hakamata, then a worker of the miso company, was arrested and indicted in 1966, and his death sentence was finalized in 1980.