A district court in central Japan has acquitted a man who was convicted of killing a family of four 58 years ago, saying key evidence was fabricated by investigators.
The Shizuoka District Court handed down the not-guilty ruling on Thursday in the retrial of 88-year-old Hakamada Iwao.
Hakamada was accused of killing a senior manager at the miso soybean paste factory where he worked, as well as the man’s family in 1966. He continued to maintain his innocence after his death sentence was finalized in 1980.
A total of 15 hearings had been held since Hakamada’s retrial began in October last year.
The main point of contention in the retrial was the color of bloodstains on five pieces of clothing found in a miso tank near the crime scene 14 months after the incident. The items served as crucial evidence that led to Hakamada’s conviction.
In Thursday’s ruling, Presiding Judge Kunii Koshi said the clothes would not retain a red hue after being buried under miso paste for more than one year.
He added that investigators planted the clothes in the tank after a considerable period of time had passed since the killings.
The judge said three pieces of evidence were fabricated by investigative authorities, including the five items of clothing and a confession statement that previous trials had ruled to have been voluntarily made by Hakamada.
A district court granted a retrial in 2014, but the decision was canceled after the prosecution lodged a complaint. In March 2023, the Tokyo High Court ordered a retrial.
This is the fifth time in postwar Japan that a court has handed down an acquittal in the retrial of a defendant whose death sentence had been finalized. The last such ruling was made 35 years ago.