An Innocent Man: Hakamata Iwao

Todesstrafe in Japan

Source: The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 6, No. 4, February 9, 2015.
Mit freundlicher Erlaubnis von japan Focus.
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An Innocent Man: Hakamada Iwao and the Problem of Wrongful Convictions in Japan
David T. Johnson

"How long, Lord, how long?"
Hakamada Iwao (Letters from Prison, 1992)
"I pray every day that Mr. Hakamada will be found innocent and released from death row."
Kumamoto Norimichi (2008), one of three judges who sentenced Hakamada to death in 1968


Over 46 years after being sentenced to death, Hakamada Iwao was released from prison last March, when a court granted a retrial admitting the possibility that evidence against him had been fabricated. Now 78 years of age, having served much of his sentence in solitary confinement, he was the world's longest-held death row inmate, and has fallen to severe mental illness. David T. Johnson presents a three-part special supplement on the death penalty in Japan. First, a video by Matthew Carney interviewing three victims of wrongful conviction: Hakamada, Ishikawa Kazuo and Sugaya Toshikazu. Second, an overview of Hakamada's case from arrest to the campaign for the retrial. Lastly, an examination of the systematic problems that lead to such catastrophic wrongful convictions. Johnson probes systemic features of Japan's criminal justice system that produces convictions based on forced confessions.

Please, go to the pdrf-Version.