A woman’s fight to free her brother from death row in Japan

When a court found Iwao Hakamata not guilty in September, the world’s longest-incarcerated death row inmate seemed unable to comprehend, much less savor, the moment.

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

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

Hideko had been fighting for a retrial for his 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 legal saga.

Mr. Hakamata’s case is notable. But it also sheds light on the systemic brutality underpinning Japan’s justice system, where death row inmates are only given a few hours’ notice of their execution by hanging and spend years not knowing whether each day will be their last.

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

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

Since being granted a new trial and released from prison in 2014, he has lived under the close care of Hideko.

When we arrive at the apartment he is on his daily outing with a group of volunteers who support the two older brothers. He feels anxious around strangers, Hideko explains, and has been in “his own world” for years.

“Maybe nothing can be done,” he says. “This is what happens when you are locked up and crammed in a small prison cell for over 40 years.

“They made 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 had been stabbed to death.

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

“We had no idea what was going on,” Hideko says of the day in 1966 when the police came to arrest her brother.

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

He initially denied all charges, but later made what he described as a forced confession after beatings and interrogations that lasted up to 12 hours a day.

Two years after his arrest, Hakamata was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to death. It was when he was moved to a cell on death row that Hideko noticed a change in his behavior.

A visit to the prison stands out in particular.

“He told me, ‘Yesterday there was an execution; it was a person in the next cell,'” he recalls. “He told me to be careful and, from then on, he completely changed his mentality and became very calm.”

Hakamata is not the only one harmed by life on Japan’s death row, where inmates wake up each morning not knowing if it will be their last.

“Between 8:00 and 8:30 in the morning was the most critical time, because that was generally when prisoners were notified of their execution,” wrote Menda Sakae, who spent 34 years on death row before being exonerated, in a book about his experience.

“You start to feel terrible anxiety, because you don’t know if they’re going to stop in front of your cell. It’s impossible to express how terrible that feeling was.”

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

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

“Once he asked me ‘Do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Yes, I know. You’re Iwao Hakamata.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘you must be here to see a different person,’ and he just went back (to his cell).”

Hideko became his main spokesperson and defender. However, it was not until 2014 that there was a breakthrough in his case.

Key evidence against 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 belonged to him. But for years, Hakamata’s defense team argued that DNA recovered from the clothing did not match his own and alleged the evidence was planted.

In 2014 they managed to persuade a judge to release him from prison and grant him a new trial.

Due to lengthy court proceedings, it was necessary to wait until last October for the new trial to begin. When he finally did, it was Hideko who appeared in court, pleading for his brother’s life.

Mr. Hakamata’s fate depended on the stains and, specifically, how they had aged.

The prosecution had claimed that the stains were reddish when the clothing was recovered, but the defense argued that the blood would have turned blackish after being soaked in miso for so long.

This was enough to convince the presiding judge, Koshi Kunii, who stated that “the investigating authority had added blood stains and hidden the objects in the miso tank long after the incident occurred.”

Judge Kunii further concluded that other evidence, including an investigation report, had been fabricated and declared Mr. Hakamata innocent.

Hideko’s first reaction was to cry.

“When the judge said the defendant is not guilty, I was happy and cried,” he says. “I’m not a crying person, but my tears flowed non-stop for about an hour.”

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

Japan has a 99% conviction rate and a system of so-called “hostage justice” that, according to Kanae Doi, Japanese director of Human Rights Watch, “denies arrested people their rights to the presumption of innocence, to bail prompt and fair hearing and access to counsel during questioning.”

“These abusive practices have led to the destruction of lives and families, as well as unjust convictions,” Doi noted in 2023.

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

He said one of the reasons it dragged on is because “critical evidence for the defense was not revealed to them until around 2010.”

The failure was “appalling and unforgivable”, Johnson told the BBC. “The judges continued to postpone the case, as they often do in response to requests for a new trial (because) they are busy and the law allows it.”

Hideko says the core of the injustice was the forced confession and coercion her brother suffered.

But Johnson says false accusations don’t happen because of a single mistake. Rather, they are compounded by failures at all levels, from police to prosecutors, courts and parliament.

“The judges have the last word,” he added. “When a wrongful conviction occurs, in the end it is because they said so. Too often, judges’ responsibility for producing and maintaining wrongful convictions is neglected, evaded and ignored.”

In that context, Mr. Hakamata’s acquittal marked a milestone: a rare moment of retrospective justice.

After finding Mr. Hakamata not guilty, the judge presiding over his retrial apologized to Hideko for the time it took to achieve justice.

Shortly after, Takayoshi Tsuda, chief of the Shizuoka police, visited his home and bowed to his brothers.

“For the past 58 years… we have caused them untold anxiety and burden,” Mr. Tsuda said. “We are very sorry.”

Hideko gave an unexpected response to the police chief.

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

After nearly 60 years of anxiety and pain, Hideko has designed her home with the express intention of letting in some light. The rooms are bright and cozy, filled with photos of her and Iwao along with family, friends and followers.

Hideko laughs as she shares memories of her “cute” little brother as a baby, flipping through black and white family photos.

The youngest of six siblings, he seems to always be by her side.

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

He enters Mr. Hakamata’s room and introduces him to his red-haired cat, who occupies the chair in which he normally sits. He then points to photographs of him when he was a young professional boxer.

“He wanted to become a champion,” he says. “Then the incident occurred.”

After Hakamata was released in 2014, Hideko wanted the apartment to be as bright as possible, he explains. Then he painted the front door pink.

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

It’s the first thing one notices when visiting Hideko’s apartment, this bright pink statement of hope and resilience.

It’s unclear whether it has worked: Hakamata still paces back and forth for hours, just as he did for years in a cell the size of three individual tatami mats.

But Hideko refuses to dwell on the question of what their lives would have been like if not for such an egregious miscarriage of justice.

When asked who he blames for his brother’s suffering, he replies, “no one.”

“Complaining about what happened will get us nowhere.”

His priority now is to keep his brother comfortable. She shaves his face, massages his head, and slices apples and apricots for his breakfast every morning.

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

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

Additional reporting by Chika Nakayama