Retrial for death row veteran

Shizuoka District Court on Thursday said it was possible that evidence was planted by investigators to secure the 1968 conviction of Iwao Hakamada. Presiding judge Hiroaki Murayama also ordered that Hakamada be released from custody, saying there was no legal basis for his continued confinement.

Hakamada was convicted for killing his boss and the man's family, then burning their house down, in a 1966 robbery. At first, he denied the charges. Hakamada later confessed, but then retracted this statement, saying it was submitted under duress. His 1968 conviction was upheld in Japan's Supreme Court in 1980.

His supporters had long campaigned on behalf of the 78-year-old former boxer, saying the bloodstained clothes that were the cornerstone of his prosecution were falsified pieces of evidence. Critics of the conviction said the clothes - found one year after the crime - did not fit Hakamada. They also argued that the bloodstains were too vivid considering the time lapse, and that later DNA tests found no link between Hakamada, the garments and the bloodstains.

Judge quit over ruling

Kumamoto Norimichi, one of the three judges who convicted Hakamada in 1968, said in 2007 that he regretted the verdict and was out-voted by his colleagues.

"I could not convince the other judges that Hakamada was innocent. I had to convict him because the decision was taken on a majority basis. It went against my personal convictions to sign off on his verdict; it's something that I still think about to this day," Norimichi said, adding that the case ultimately prompted him to resign as a judge.

Amnesty International on Thursday welcomed the move for a retrial, saying Japanese courts "have at last seen sense." The rights group criticized reports in Japanese media that public prosecutors would appeal the ruling that Hakamada should receive a retrial.

"It would be most callous and unfair of prosecutors to appeal the court's decision. Time is running out for Hakamada to receive the fair trial he was denied more than four decades ago," Amnesty's East Asia Research Director Roseann Rife said. "If ever there was a case that merits a retrial, this is it. Hakamada was convicted on the basis of a forced confession and there remain unanswered questions over recent DNA evidence."

Ninety-nine percent conviction rate

Japan retains the death penalty, hanging those convicted, and carried out eight executions in 2013, according to Amnesty's annual report on death sentences worldwide, released on Thursday.

Japan's legal system has a conviction rate of around 99 percent and places great cultural value on the confession of a suspect in court. Critics maintain that heavy-handed police interrogations remain a problem, partly because of the pressure to secure a confession Supporters point instead to prosecutors exercising above-average caution in deciding which cases to put to trial.

Hakamada himself later claimed that his confession was submitted after police brutality. He was reportedly interrogated for 22 days without a laywer, sometimes for 16 hours a day.

The 78-year-old inmate, who is reportedly now showing signs of dementia, is predominantly kept in solitary confinement, but can receive family visitors. His elder sister Hideko had long campaigned for his release. She thanked dozens of supporters in front of the courthouse in Shizuoka, near Mt. Fuji, on Thursday.

"This happened thanks to all of you who helped us. I am just so happy," the 81-year-old said.

Hideko told the AFP news agency last year that she was "most worried" about her brother's health: "If you put someone in jail for 47 years, it's too much to expect them to stay sane," she said.

msh/kms (AFP, Reuters)