A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.45 million in compensation, an official said on Tuesday.
The payout represents 12,500 yen (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last.
The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others.
The Shizuoka District Court, in a decision dated Monday, said that “the claimant shall be granted 217,362,500 yen,” a court spokesman said.
The same court ruled in September that Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial and that police had tampered with evidence.
Hakamada had suffered “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement [confession]” that he later withdrew, the court said at the time.