Sakae Menda, a man freed from death row more than 24 years ago, called on member states Tuesday at the United Nations to step up efforts to achieve a global abolishment of capital punishment.

"I have come to strongly believe in working and acting together with individuals who share an understanding in this cause; to abolish the death penalty so long as there is a danger of falsely convicting the innocent," he told an audience of delegates to the U.N. who had gathered to listen to him and two other men who were wrongly convicted speak out against capital punishment at an event organized by Amnesty International.

Now 81, Menda recalled the horror of being accused of murdering and wounding a family of four in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Prefecture, in 1948.