Japanese court acquits a former boxer in a 1966 murder retrial after decades on death row

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese court ruled Thursday that an 88-year-old former boxer was not guilty in a retrial for a 1966 quadruple murder, reversing an earlier wrongful conviction after decades on death row.

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. The case could rekindle a debate around abolishing the death penalty in Japan.

The court’s presiding judge, Koshi Kunii, said the court acknowledged a multiple fabrications of evidence and that Hakamada was not the culprit, NHK said.