Iwao Hakamata: The former pro-boxer fighting for exoneration, with help from his sister

When Iwao Hakamata, then 30, was arrested on Aug. 18, 1966, over his suspected involvement in a murder-arson case in Shizuoka Prefecture, he was interrogated by the police for an average of 12 hours a day — sometimes for up to 16 hours — for 23 days in a simmering hot room without air conditioning.

During this time, he was only able to speak to his lawyer on three occasions, for seven minutes, 10 minutes and 15 minutes, respectively. Unlike in some countries, Japan’s judicial system doesn’t allow lawyers to be present during an interrogation.

After 21 days, on Sept. 6 of that year, the exhausted former pro-boxer caved, admitting to stabbing a miso firm executive, his wife and two teenage children to death before setting the house on fire with gasoline.

That day forever changed the course of his life, leading him to spend 48 years in detention. It was also the beginning of a long, drawn out fight for exoneration.

The struggle continues to this day, with the Tokyo High Court ordering a retrial on March 13 — a decision that was finalized a week later when prosecutors gave up appealing the case. The Shizuoka District Court will now reopen the case, with a high possibility of Hakamata’s conviction being overturned.

“I’m truly happy. I’ve waited 57 years for this,” said 90-year-old Hideko Hakamata, Iwao Hakamata’s elder sister, just after the high court decision was announced and as supporters clapped in celebration. She had been working to exonerate her brother for decades.

Hideko Hakamata (center) and Hideyo Ogawa, Iwao Hakamata's lawyer, smile after the Tokyo High Court ordered a retrial for a 1966 murder case on March 13. | AFP-JIJI

Iwao Hakamata, now 87, who is suffering from mental illness as a result of spending decades in prison, was at home in Shizuoka when the news broke and was unable to fully comprehend what had happened.

The case is centered on the murder of a family of four — each stabbed or slashed six to 15 times — at their home before the house was set on fire on June 30, 1966. Some ¥80,000 in cash was also missing.

Over 1,000 police officers were dispatched to help with the investigation in the first week. More than a month later, police arrested Hakamata, who was an employee of the murdered miso-maker, after investigators found traces of gasoline and blood that weren’t his own on his pajamas.

Hakamata initially denied the charges against him. And despite his initial confession after the marathon interrogation sessions, he later recanted and pleaded not guilty at his first trial hearing in November 1966 and has since maintained that stance.

Letters from prison

Hakamata wrote over 5,000 pages of letters, postcards and diary entries while he was detained. At first, his letters expressed hope that his innocence would be proven during trial.

“God almighty, I am not the perpetrator,” he wrote in a letter to his mother in 1967. “I simply pray and shout in hopes that (my words) will reach the ears of people traveling through the winds of Shizuoka.”

In another letter he wrote in January 1969 after he was handed a death sentence four months earlier, in September 1968, he pleaded: “Please help an innocent man like me, who has received a death sentence after being detained for years.”

But his tone took a pessimistic turn after his death sentence was finalized in December 1980.

“Misfortunes strike human beings all of a sudden without warning,” Hakamata wrote. “Anyone who looks at me seems like they are ganging up on me to make me the perpetrator.”

Ganser syndrome

Hakamata appeared to have lost himself, becoming mentally unstable soon after his death sentence was finalized. Convicted death row inmates are usually transferred to a solitary cell, waking up every day not knowing whether or not it will be their last. The waiting period, however, is prolonged if, for instance, the inmate seeks a retrial.

In Hakamata’s case, he filed a retrial request soon after his death sentence was finalized. The first request was rejected by the district, high and supreme courts — that entire process lasted 27 years.

In a major breakthrough, the Shizuoka District Court greenlighted a second retrial request in 2014, allowing him to be released after nearly 50 years.

But what made the case more complicated was a subsequent split decision by higher courts. After prosecutors appealed the 2014 decision, the Tokyo High Court denied the retrial request in 2018, while the Supreme Court sent the case back to the high court for further deliberation in 2020.

Earlier this month, the Tokyo High Court ordered a retrial and the case was sent back to the Shizuoka District Court.

Hakamata was in solitary confinement for nearly 34 years until he was released after the Shizuoka District Court greenlighted his second retrial request in 2014. Guinness World Records recognized Hakamata as being the world’s longest serving death row prisoner.

“He started to lose himself after someone next to his prison cell was executed just after his capital punishment was finalized,” Hideko Hakamata said in a booklet compiled by Hakamata’s defense team. “He started saying there was someone emitting radio waves, or wearing a snack bag over his head when I went to meet him, or saying he doesn’t have an older sister.

“That could happen if you have been in a small solitary cell for decades,” she said.

Naoshi Nakajima, a psychiatrist at Tama Aoba Hospital in western Tokyo who became Hakamata’s physician, said he suffers from Ganser syndrome, a rare dissociative disorder that involves odd behavior and hallucinations commonly seen in prisoners.

“Saying nonsensical things, writing words from right to left ... describing himself as the god almighty, and rejecting help from his supporters are some of the symptoms he had,” Nakajima said in a video clip compiled by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA). “(The symptoms) continued on for a long time for Hakamata.”

Support from his sister

Even after he was released from prison in 2014 and stayed with his sister Hideko Hakamata, his odd behavior continued.

“Iwao was, at first, (expressionless), like a noh mask, and he didn't say anything,” Hideko Hakamata recalled. “He would walk around inside the house for eight hours, probably what he had done in the solitary cell.”

Nine years on, his expression has softened, and he engages in conversation with other people, she said.

It’s also been hard for Hideko Hakamata, who has continuously supported her brother for more than half a century. But she is determined to soldier on.

“I’m like a mother to Iwao,” she said. “Our mother passed away after falling ill due to stress (from her son’s arrest). I’m carrying on her sorrow, her mortification with me. I’m the only one who can do it.”

Controversial evidence

The primary focus in the Tokyo High Court decision was bloodstains on five pieces of clothing — which were said to have been worn by the perpetrator — found in a miso barrel a year after the murder was committed.

Prosecutors have described the bloodstains as dark red, but the defense team has claimed the items of clothing were planted, since they would have changed color if they had been hidden in a miso barrel for more than a year.

The Tokyo High Court ruling said that because there was no discoloration on the clothing, it was unlikely that Hakamata hid it inside the barrel before he was arrested.

The ruling went on to point out the possibility that the evidence had been planted by a third party, with a “high likelihood that it might be one of the investigators.”

A former police officer, now in his 80s, who searched the miso barrel four days after the murder said he would not have missed something as large and obvious as clothing.

“We used something like a long stick to search inside the barrel but we didn’t find anything,” the former police officer told NHK. “There is little chance we could have missed something as large as clothing. ... I find it weird that (bloodied clothes) were found a year later.”

Iwao’s case is the fifth time a convicted death row inmate has been granted a retrial. In all four previous cases, the defendants were found to be not guilty.

But even if Hakamata is exonerated in the upcoming Shizuoka District Court trial, the years he lost in prison and the mental illness he developed because of it will continue to bear deep scars.

Hideko Hakamata is still coming to terms with that.

“Iwao has been saying since he was released from prison that his trial is already over,” she said during a news conference after the high court ruling earlier in March. “So when I go home, I’ll just tell him that we’ve got a good result, and nothing more.

“The best thing for Iwao is to be free, to be able to do what he wants to do.”

Chronology of major events related to the 1966 murder case

June 30, 1966: Family of four, including two children, found murdered in ruins of a miso company executive's burned-down house in Shizuoka.

August: Former professional boxer Iwao Hakamata arrested on suspicion of murder-robbery.

August 1967: Bloodstained clothing discovered in factory's miso tank.

September 1968: Hakamata sentenced to death.

December 1980: Supreme Court finalizes capital punishment.

April 1981: Hakamata files first appeal for retrial.

August 1994: Shizuoka District Court turns down appeal, prompting defense team to appeal to Tokyo High Court.

August 2004: Tokyo High Court turns down appeal, prompting defense team to file special appeal the next month.

March 2008: Supreme Court turns down special appeal.

April: Hakamata's sister Hideko Hakamata files second appeal.

March 27, 2014: Shizuoka District Court decides to reopen case, Hakamata freed.

March 31: Prosecutors appeal decision to reopen case.

June 11, 2018: Tokyo High Court rules against reopening case.

June 18: Defense team files special appeal to Supreme Court.

December 2020: Supreme Court sends case back to Tokyo High Court.

March 13, 2023: Tokyo High Court rules for reopening case.

March 20: Prosecutors decide not to appeal decision to reopen case.

Timeline compiled by Kyodo