Supporters for a former professional boxer who has been on death row for decades handed the Supreme Court a petition with 2,880 signatures Wednesday demanding a retrial.
Iwao Hakamada, 69, was sentenced to death in 1980 for fatally stabbing his boss and the victim's family and setting their house on fire in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1966.
He has been seeking a retrial since 1981, saying he was forced to confess during weeks of pretrial interrogation in which he claimed he was tortured and denied food and water.
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