In 1968, the former boxer Iwao Hakamada was placed on death row, convicted of four murders. Now, the 88-year-old is acquitted since a Japanese court has established that he is innocent, reports Japanese media.
Hakamada was convicted of murdering a company executive and his family in 1966. The fact that the death penalty has not been carried out is due, among other things, to a series of appeals that have dragged on over time. It took, for example, 27 years before the Supreme Court rejected his first appeal.
As early as 2014, Hakamada was released from prison, when a court decided that the trial should be retried after new evidence emerged.