A Japanese man who spent more than 40 years on death row before being acquitted last year has been awarded $1.4 million in damages, a Japanese court confirmed on Tuesday. The compensation for Iwao Hakamada, 89, represents about $85 for each day of unjust punishment.
The former professional boxer was sentenced to death in 1968 for a quadruple murder, despite repeatedly claiming that police had fabricated evidence against him, A2 CNN reports. He was the longest-serving death row inmate in the world until a DNA test confirmed that bloodstained clothing used as evidence against him had been tampered with after the fact.
The Shizuoka District Court awarded Hakamada 217 million yen ($1.4 million), the largest amount ever awarded for wrongful conviction in Japan. His lawyer, Hideyo Ogawa, called the amount insufficient to compensate for his suffering.
Hakamada was arrested in 1966 after his boss, his wife, and their two children were found stabbed to death in their home. He initially pleaded guilty but later changed his plea, saying the police had coerced him into confessing through violence and threats. Two of the three members of the jury found him guilty, and the judge who dissented resigned six months later.
After more than 50 years in prison, including 40 years on death row, new evidence led to his release in 2014, and a retrial found him innocent last year. His case has sparked criticism of Japan's criminal justice system, where conviction rates run as high as 99%.
His sister, Hideko, said that decades in prison had caused him irreparable mental problems and that he lived "in his own world", unable to understand reality. (A2 Televizion)
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