A woman’s 56-year fight to free her innocent brother from death row

When a court declared Iwao Hakamata innocent in September, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate seemed unable to comprehend, let alone enjoy, the moment.

“I told him he had been acquitted, and he was silent,” his 91-year-old sister Hideko Hakamata tells the BBC at her home in Hamamatsu, Japan.

“I can’t tell if he understood or not.”

Hideko had been fighting to re-trial her brother since he was convicted of quadruple murder in 1968.

In September 2024, at the age of 88, he was finally acquitted – ending Japan’s longest-running legal saga.

The case of Shri Hakamata is noteworthy. But it also highlights the systemic cruelty underlying Japan’s justice system, where death row inmates are informed only hours before their execution, and spend years unsure whether each day will be their last. It will be day.

Human rights experts have long condemned such treatment as cruel and inhumane and say it increases the risk of prisoners developing serious mental illness.

And spending more than half his life in solitary confinement, awaiting execution for a crime he did not commit, took a heavy toll on Mr. Hakamata.

Since being granted a retrial and released from prison in 2014, he has been living under Hideko’s close care.

When we arrive at the apartment he is on his daily walk with a volunteer group that supports two elderly siblings. As Hideko explains, he remains anxious around strangers and has been in “his own world” for years.

“Maybe it can’t be helped,” she says. “This is what happens when you are locked in a small prison cell for more than 40 years.

“They let him live like an animal.”

Iwao Hakamata, a former professional boxer, was working at a miso processing plant when the bodies of his boss, the man’s wife, and their two teenage children were found. All four were stabbed to death.

Authorities accused Mr Hakamata of murdering the family, setting fire to their house in Shizuoka and stealing 200,000 yen (£199; $556) in cash.

“We didn’t know what was happening,” Hideko says of that day in 1966. When the police came to arrest his brother.

The family home was searched, as well as the homes of his two elder sisters, and Sri Hakamata was taken away.

He initially denied all charges, but later gave a forced confession after being beaten and interrogated for up to 12 hours a day.

Two years after his arrest, Mr. Hakamata was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to death. When he was taken to the death row, Hideko noticed a change in his demeanor.

A prison visit is particularly noteworthy.

She recalls, “He said to me, ‘There was a hanging yesterday – there was a man in the next cell’.” “He told me to take care – and since then, he completely changed mentally and became much calmer.”

Mr Hakamata is not the only one who has been scarred by life on Japan’s death row, where prisoners wake up every morning not knowing whether it will be their last.

“The time between 08:00 and 08:30 in the morning was the most critical time, as this was usually the time when prisoners were informed of their execution,” said Menda Sake, who spent 34 years on death row before being exonerated. He spent time in prison, has written about his experience in a book.

“You start to feel the most terrible anxiety, because you don’t know whether they will stop in front of your cell or not. It is impossible to express what a terrible feeling it was.”

James Welsh, lead author of a 2009 Amnesty International report on death penalty conditions, said that “the daily threat of imminent death is cruel, inhumane and degrading”. The report concluded that prisoners were at risk of “significant mental health issues”.

Hideko could only watch as her own brother’s mental health deteriorated as the years passed.

“Once he asked me ‘Do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Yes, I know you are Iwao Hakamata.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘you have to come here to see a different person’ and he went back (to his chamber).’

Hideko proceeded as their primary spokesperson and lawyer. However, there was no breakthrough in his case as of 2014.

A key piece of evidence against Mr. Hakamata was red-stained clothing found in a miso tank at his workplace.

They were recovered a year and two months after the murders and prosecutors said they were his. But for years Mr Hakamata’s defense team argued that DNA recovered from the clothes did not match his DNA – and alleged that the evidence had been planted.

In 2014 they succeeded in convincing a judge to release him from prison and grant him a retrial.

Protracted legal proceedings meant it took until last October for the trial to begin again. When it finally happened, it was Hideko who appeared in court, pleading for her brother’s life.

Mr. Hakamata’s fate depended on the scars, and especially how they aged.

The prosecution claimed that the clothes were stained red when they were recovered – but the defense argued that the blood would have turned black after being soaked in miso for so long.

This was enough to convince the presiding judge Koshi Kuni, who declared that “the investigating authority had added blood stains after the incident and hid the items in the miso tank”.

Judge Kuni further found that other evidence, including investigation records, had been fabricated, and declared Mr. Hakamata innocent.

Hideko’s first reaction was to cry.

“When the judge said the defendant was not guilty, I cheered, I had tears in my eyes,” she says. “I’m not a crying person, but my tears flowed non-stop for almost an hour.”

The court’s finding that the evidence against Mr. Hakamata was fabricated raises troubling questions.

The conviction rate in Japan is 99%, and there is a system of so-called “hostage justice” which, according to Kanae Doi, Japan director of Human Rights Watch, “deprives arrested people of their rights to the presumption of innocence, to quick and fair bail.” ” Access to a lawyer during hearings, and interrogations”.

“These abusive practices have resulted in broken lives and families, as well as wrongful convictions,” Mr. Doi said in 2023.

David T. Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, whose research focuses on criminal justice in Japan, has been following the Hakamata case for the past 30 years.

He said one reason it took so long was that “evidence important to the defense was not disclosed until around 2010”.

Mr Johnson told the BBC the failure was “serious and inexcusable”. “The judges kept putting the case on hold, as they often do in response to review petitions (because) they are busy, and the law allows them to do so.”

Hideko says that the root of the injustice was the forced confession and the coercion suffered by her brother.

But Mr Johnson says the false allegations do not stem from a single mistake. Instead, they are compounded by failures at all levels – from police to prosecutors, courts and parliament.

“Judges have the last word,” he said. “When there is a wrongful conviction, in the end, it happens because they said so. Too often, the responsibility of judges for creating and perpetuating wrongful convictions is ignored, ignored. “

Against that backdrop, Mr. Hakamata’s acquittal was a historic event – ​​a rare moment of retrospective justice.

After declaring Mr. Hakamata innocent, the judge presiding over his retrial apologized to Hideko for how long it had taken to obtain justice.

A short time later, Shizuoka Police Chief Takayoshi Tsuda went to her home and bowed before the brother and sister.

Mr. Tsuda said, “For the past 58 years…we have caused you indescribable worry and burden.” “We are truly sorry.”

Hideko gave the police chief an unexpected answer.

“We believe that whatever happened was our destiny,” he said. “Now we won’t complain about anything.”

After nearly 60 years of worry and heartache, Hideko has decorated his home with the express intention of bringing some light into it. The rooms are bright and inviting, filled with photos of her and Iwao with family friends and supporters.

Hideko laughs when she shares memories of her “beloved” younger brother when she was a child, in which she would look at black and white family photos.

The youngest of six siblings, he is always seen standing next to her.

“We were always together when we were kids,” she explains. “I always knew I had to take care of my younger brother. And so, it continues.”

She goes to Mr. Hakamata’s room and introduces him to his ginger cat, who is sitting on the chair he usually sits on. She then points to photos of him as a young professional boxer.

“He wanted to be a champion,” she says. “Then things happened.”

She explains that after the release of Mr. Hakamata in 2014, Hideko wanted to make the apartment as bright as possible. So she painted the front door pink.

“I believed that if he was in a bright room and had a happy life, he would recover naturally.”

The first thing one notices when walking into Hideko’s apartment is this bright pink statement of hope and resilience.

It’s not clear whether it has worked – Mr. Hakamata still paces back and forth for hours, just as he did for years in a prison cell shaped like three single tatami mats.

But Hideko refused to speak for long on the question of what his life would have been like if there had not been such a gross disregard for justice.

When asked who she blames for her brother’s suffering, she replies: “No one”.

“Complaining about what happened will get us nowhere.”

Now his priority is to keep his brother comfortable. She shaves his face, massages his head, cuts him apples and apricots for breakfast every morning.

Hideko, who has spent most of her 91 years fighting for her brother’s freedom, says that was her fate.

“I don’t want to think about the past. I don’t know how long I’ll live,” she says. “I just want Iwao to live a peaceful and quiet life.”

Additional reporting by Chika Nakayama