Boxer on death row for 48 years proven innocent after a DNA test

A former professional boxer who was on death row for 48 years has been freed after DNA tests undermined a key piece of evidence against him.

Iwao Hakamada was released after the tests proved blood-stained clothing used in his prosecution did not belong to him. The 78-year-old has a Guinness world record as the longest-serving death row inmate of all time.

He was forced to wait 27 years before the Supreme Court in Japan denied his first appeal. Mr Hakamada has waited for a verdict on his second since 2008.

Judge Hiroaki Murayama said: ‘It is unbearably unjust to prolong detention of the defendant any further.

‘The possibility of his innocence has become clear to a respectable degree.’

Mr Hakamada was sentenced to die after he was found guilty of stabbing a family of four to death and torching their home in Shizuoka in 1966. He was their servant. He was interrogated by police for 20 days until he admitted guilt. But during his trial, he claimed he was beaten and threatened until he confessed.

It is believed his mental health has deteriorated rapidly over four decades of isolation. Amnesty International has warned the use of forced confessions in Japan is wrong but still widespread.

East Asia director, Roseann Rife, said: ‘For more than 45 years, Mr Hakamada has lived under the fear of execution, never knowing from one day to the next if he is going to be put to death.

‘This adds psychological torture to an already cruel and inhumane punishment.’ He is only the sixth death row inmate in Japan to be retried.

The first four were freed and the fifth case continues.

Prosecutors have four days to appeal the ruling of Shizuoka court.