He served nearly 50 years on death row for murders he didn't commit, but now octogenarian Iwao Hakamata is about to recoup some compensation for his ordeal. The BBC reports that a judge has ordered the Japanese government to pay $1.45 million to 89-year-old Iwao Hakamata, who spent 47 years in detention before he was acquitted in a retrial. Hakamata, a former pro boxer, is thought to have been on death row longer "than anyone not only in Japan, but the world," notes the South China Morning Post. Meanwhile, the payout he's now entitled to is the largest ever in Japan in a criminal case, according to his legal team.
CNN notes that the amount comes out to about $85 per day since Hakamata was found guilty. Judge Kunii Koshi agreed with the request by Hakamata's lawyers that their client had suffered "extremely severe" physical and mental pain during his incarceration, which began in 1968 when he was convicted of murdering his boss and the boss' family two years prior. A rare retrial, however, led to his release from prison in 2014, almost five decades after he'd been thrown behind bars, after suspicions popped up about the prosecutors in his original trial planting evidence. He was officially acquitted last year.
The BBC notes that Hakamata's plight "has raised questions about Japan's justice system, including the time taken for a retrial and the allegations of forced confessions," as he has said he was coerced into admitting to the murders via beatings and interrogations that lasted all day. "It is only natural for the highest amount of criminal compensation to be awarded in a death penalty case where fabrication has been acknowledged," one of Hakamata's attorneys said at a presser, adding that not even the huge payout could "possibly atone for" such a "wrongdoing," per Kyodo News. (More Japan stories.)
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