WHEN Iwao Hakamada was told on March 27th that he was a free man, he was at first unable to take it in. “His first reaction was: ‘That must be a lie’, said his lawyer, Katsuhiko Nishijima. Every day of his life for the past 45 years, Mr Hakamada woke up wondering if he was about to be frog-marched to the gallows. A Japanese court freed him on Thursday, on the grounds that the evidence that was used to put him behind bars back in 1966 was probably fabricated by police.
Mr Hakamada, who is now 78 years old, was convicted of murdering a family of four, mainly on the basis of a confession that he insists was coerced. Since his conviction was finalised in 1968, Mr Hakamada has lived in solitary confinement, waiting to be hanged. Death-row inmates in Japan are deprived of contact with the outside world, a policy which is supposed to “avoid disturbing their peace of mind”, in the words of the justice ministry. He has always maintained his innocence.
Remarkably, one of the three judges who sentenced him felt the same. Six months after Mr Hakamada was sent to death row, the judge resigned, saying the conviction haunted him. Yet it was only this week that an active legal authority ordered his retrial. Hiroaki Murayama, the presiding judge of Shizuoka District Court, west of Tokyo, said items of clothing and other evidence presented by the police in court “may have been fabricated.” Mr Hakamada’s lawyers say DNA tests on his bloodstained clothes prove the blood was not his.
The case raises uncomfortable questions. The extraordinary police powers that were used to put Mr Hakamada in prison—including the right of police to detain and question suspects for up to for three weeks without a lawyer—are still in effect. Mr Hakamada did sign a confession but later retracted it, insisting he was beaten and coerced. Lawyers in Japan say courts rely far too heavily on confessions in criminal trials. The conviction rate in Japanese courts is about 99%. And the consequences for any error are as high as can be—for Japan still uses the gallows.
