TOKYO (AP) — A court ruled Thursday that an 88-year-old former boxer was not guilty in a , reversing an earlier wrongful conviction after decades on death row, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.
Iwao Hakamada’s acquittal by the Shizuoka District Court makes him the fifth death-row convict to be found not guilty in a retrial in postwar Japanese criminal justice.
He was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of a company manager and three of his family members, and setting a fire to their central Japan home. He was sentenced to death in 1968, but was not executed due to lengthy appeals and the retrial process.
Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press
