Japan awards record US$1.4m payout to world’s longest-serving death row inmate after exoneration

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - This photo taken on September 29, 2024 shows Iwao Hakamada (left) speaking as his then 91-year-old sister Hideko (right) holds the microphone during a judgement report session held by supporters in the city of Shizuoka, Shizuoka prefecture, two days after he was acquitted, more than half a century after his murder conviction, when a Japanese court ruled that evidence had been fabricated. — AFP pic

TOKYO, March 25 — A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.4 million (RM6.2 million) in compensation, an official said today.

The payout represents ¥12,500 (RM368) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last.

The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others.

The Shizuoka District Court, in a decision dated yesterday, said that “the claimant shall be granted 217,362,500 yen,” a court spokesman told AFP.

The same court ruled in September that Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial and that police had tampered with evidence.

Hakamada had suffered “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement (confession)” that he later withdrew, the court said at the time.

The final amount is a record for compensation of this kind, local media said.

But Hakamada’s legal team has said the money falls short of the pain he suffered.

Decades of detention — with the threat of execution constantly looming — took a major toll on Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers have said, describing him as “living in a world of fantasy”.

Hakamada was the fifth death row inmate granted a retrial in Japan’s post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exonerations. — AFP