Exonerated prisoner awarded $1.4m after 46 years spent on dying row in Japan | Japan

A Japanese man wrongly convicted of homicide who was the world’s longest-serving dying row inmate has been awarded $1.4m in compensation, an official has stated.

The payout represents 12,500 yen ($83) for every day of the 46 years that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on dying row when every day may have been his final.

The previous boxer, now 89, was exonerated in 2024 of a 1966 quadruple homicide after a tireless marketing campaign by his sister and others.

The Shizuoka District Courtroom, in a call dated Monday, stated that “the claimant shall be granted 217,362,500,000 yen”, a court docket spokesperson advised AFP.

The identical court docket dominated in September that Hakamada was not responsible in a retrial and that police had tampered with proof.

Hakamada had suffered “inhumane interrogations meant to drive a press release (confession)“ that he later withdrew, the court docket stated on the time. The ultimate quantity is a document for compensation of this type, native media stated.

However Hakamada’s authorized group has stated the cash falls in need of the ache he suffered.

A long time of detention – with the specter of execution continuously looming – took a serious toll on Hakamada’s psychological well being, his attorneys have stated, describing him as “dwelling in a world of fantasy”.

Hakamada was the fifth dying row inmate granted a retrial in Japan’s postwar historical past. All 4 earlier instances additionally resulted in exonerations.