Hideko Hakamata: A Woman’s Fight to Free Her Brother from Japan’s Death Row

When a court acquitted Iwao Hakamata in September, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate seemed unable to understand the moment, with little flavor.

“I told him he had been acquitted, and he remained silent,” his 91-year-old sister, Hideko Hakamata, tells the BBC at her home in Hamatsu, Japan.

“I can’t tell if he understands or not.”

Hideko had been fighting for her brother’s retrial since he was convicted of the quadruple murder in 1968.

In September 2024, aged 88, he was finally acquitted – ending Japan’s longest legal saga.

The case of Mr. Hakamata is noteworthy. But it also highlights the systemic brutality underpinning Japan’s justice system, where death row inmates are notified only hours before their executions, and for years unsure whether they will be executed each day. It will be the last day.

Human rights experts have long condemned such treatment as cruel and inhumane, and say it puts prisoners at risk of serious mental illness.

And spending more than half his life in solitary confinement, awaiting execution for a crime he did not commit, took a toll on Mr. Hakamata.

Since being granted a retrial and released from prison in 2014, he has been living under Hideko’s close care.

When we arrive at the apartment, he goes out daily with a volunteer group that helps two elderly siblings. Hideko explains that she is worried about strangers, and has been in “her own world” for years.

“Maybe it can’t be helped,” she says. “That’s what happens when you’re locked in a small prison cell for over 40 years.

“They brought him to life like an animal.”

Iwao Hakamata, a former professional boxer, was working at a copper processing plant when the bodies of his boss, the man’s wife and their two teenage children were found. All four were stabbed to death.

Authorities accused Mr Hakamata of killing the family, setting fire to their home in Shizuoka and stealing 200,000 yen (£199; $556) in cash.

“We had no idea what was going on,” Hideko says of the day in 1966 when the police came to arrest her brother.

The family home was searched, as well as the homes of his two older sisters, and Mr. Hakimata was taken away.

He initially denied all charges, but later gave what he described as a forced confession after being beaten and interrogated for 12 hours a day.

Two years after his arrest, Mr. Hakamata was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to death. It was when he was transferred to a death row cell that Hideko noticed a change in his behavior.

One prison visit in particular stands out.

“He told me, ‘There was an execution yesterday – it was a person in the next cell’,” she recalls. “He told me to take care – and from then on, he changed completely mentally and became very quiet.”

Mr. Hakamata is not alone in losing his life on Japan’s death row, where inmates wake up every morning not knowing it will be their last.

“Between 08:00 and 08:30 in the morning was the most critical time, because it was usually when the prisoners were informed of their execution,” said Menda Saki, who spent 34 years before the death penalty. wrote in a book. experience it.

“You start to feel the most terrifying anxiety, because you don’t know if they’re going to stop in front of your cell or not. It’s impossible to describe how terrifying that feeling was.”

James Welsh, lead author of a 2009 Amnesty International report on conditions on the death penalty, noted that “the daily threat of death is cruel, inhuman and degrading”. The report concluded that prisoners were at risk of “significant mental health problems”.

Hideko could only watch as her own brother’s mental health deteriorated over the years.

“Once he asked me ‘do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Yes, I am you.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘you must see another person here,’ and he went back. [to his cell]”

Hideko stepped in as his primary spokesperson and advocate. It wasn’t until 2014, however, that there was any progress in his case.

A key piece of evidence against Mr. Hakamata was red-stained clothing found in a miso tank at his workplace.

They were recovered a year and two months after the murder, and prosecutors said they were related. But for years Mr Hakamata’s defense team argued that DNA recovered from the clothes did not match him – and alleged that the evidence had been planted.

In 2014, he was able to convince a judge to release him from prison and retry him.

Protracted legal proceedings meant it took until last October for the trial to resume. When it finally happened, it was Hideko who appeared in court, pleading for her brother’s life.

Mr. Hakamata’s fate depended on the scars, and especially how he aged.

Prosecutors claimed the stains were red when the clothes were recovered – but the defense argued the blood must have turned black after being submerged in copper for so long.

This was enough to convince presiding judge Koshi Kini, who declared that “the investigating authority had put blood stains after the incident and hidden the items in a copper tank”.

Judge Cooney further found that other evidence, including the investigative records, was fabricated and acquitted Mr. Hakamata.

Hadko’s first reaction was to cry.

“When the judge said the defendant was not guilty, I was so happy; I was crying,” she says. “I’m not a crying person, but my tears just flowed non-stop for an hour.”

The court’s finding that the evidence against Mr Hakamata was fabricated raises troubling questions.

Japan has a 99 percent conviction rate, and a system of so-called “hostage justice” that, according to Kana Doi, Japan director of Human Rights Watch, “refuses to arrest people who are innocent. Presumably, they are deprived of their rights to prompt and fair bail, and access to counsel during interrogation.”

Ms. Doi noted in 2023 that “lives and families have been torn apart as a result of these abusive practices, as well as wrongful convictions.”

David T. Johnson, a professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa whose research focuses on criminal justice in Japan, has been following the Hakamata case for the past 30 years.

He said one of the reasons it dragged on was that “key evidence for the defense was not disclosed until around 2010”.

Mr Johnson told the BBC the failure was “inexcusable and inexcusable”. “Judges kept kicking the case down the road, as they often do in response to retrial requests (because) they’re busy, and the law allows them to do that.”

Hideko says that the main reason for the injustice was the forced confession and what her brother had to endure.

But Mr Johnson says false accusations are not caused by a single mistake. Instead, they are compounded by failures at every level – from the police to prosecutors, courts and parliament.

He added that judges have the final word. “When a wrongful conviction is handed down, in the end, it’s because they said so. Too often, the responsibility of judges to create and perpetuate wrongful convictions is ignored. is and is ignored.”

Against this backdrop, Mr. Hakamata’s acquittal was a watershed — a rare moment of retrospective justice.

After Mr. Hakamata was found not guilty, the judge presiding over his retrial apologized to Hideko for how long it had taken to get justice.

Shortly after, Shizuka Police Chief Takayoshi Tsuda went to her house and bowed to both brother and sister.

“For the past 58 years… we have caused you unspeakable trouble and burden,” Mr. Tsuda said. “We’re really sorry.”

Hideko gave the police chief an unexpected answer.

He said that we believe that what happened was our destiny. “Now we won’t complain about anything.”

After nearly 60 years of worry and heartache, Hideko has styled her home with the express intention of shedding some light. The rooms are bright and inviting, filled with photos of her and Evao with family friends and supporters.

Hideko laughs as she shares memories of her “beloved” younger brother as a child, through black-and-white family photos.

The youngest of six siblings, he always seems to stand by her side.

“We were always together when we were kids,” she explains. “I always knew I had to take care of my little brother. And so, it continues.”

She walks into Mr. Hakamata’s room and introduces his ginger cat, who sits on the chair he usually sits on. Then she points to pictures of him as a young professional boxer.

“He wanted to be a champion,” she says. “Then the incident happened.”

After Mr. Hakamata’s release in 2014, Hideko wanted to make the apartment as bright as possible, she explains. So he painted the front door pink.

“I believed that if he was in a bright room and had a pleasant life, he would naturally recover.”

This is the first thing one notices when visiting Hideko’s apartment, this bright pink statement of hope and resilience.

It’s unclear whether it has worked – Mr Hakamata still walks back and forth for hours, just as he has for years in a prison cell the size of three single tatami mats.

But Hideko refuses to dwell on the question of what her life would have been like had it not been for such a colossal miscarriage of justice.

When asked who she holds responsible for her brother’s suffering, she replies: “Nobody”.

“We will not find any complaints about what happened.”

His priority now is to keep his brother comfortable. Every morning she shaves his face, massages his head, eats sliced ​​apples and apricots for his breakfast.

Hideko, who has spent most of her 91 years fighting for her brother’s freedom, says it was her fate.

“I don’t want to think about the past. I don’t know how long I will live,” she says. “I just want Iwao to live a peaceful and quiet life.”

Additional reporting by Chika Nakayama