A Japanese man who spent more than 40 years on death row until he was acquitted last year has been awarded $1.4 million in compensation, a court said on Tuesday \u2013 roughly $85 for each day he was wrongfully convicted. <\/p>\n
Former professional boxer Iwao Hakamada, 89, was sentenced to death in 1968 for a quadruple murder despite repeatedly alleging that the police had fabricated evidence against him. <\/p>\n
Once the world\u2019s longest-serving death row inmate, he was acquitted after a DNA test showed that the bloodstained clothing which was used to convict him was planted long after the murders, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK. <\/p>\n
His legal representative Hideyo Ogawa described the compensation as the \u201chighest amount\u201d ever handed out for a wrongful conviction in Japan, but said it could never make up for what Hakamada had suffered. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think the state (government) has made a mistake that cannot be atoned for with 200 million yen,\u201d the lawyer said, according to NHK. <\/p>\n
Hakamata retired as a professional boxer in 1961 and got a job at a soybean processing plant in Shizuoka, central Japan. <\/p>\n
Five years later he was arrested by police after his boss, his boss\u2019 wife and their two children were found stabbed to death in their home. <\/p>\n
Hakamata initially admitted to the charges against him, but later changed his plea, accusing police of forcing him to confess by beating and threatening him. <\/p>\n
He was sentenced to death in a 2-1 decision by judges in 1968. <\/p>\n
The one dissenting judge stepped down from the bar six months later, demoralized by his inability to stop the sentencing. <\/p>\n
Hakamata, who has maintained his innocence ever since, would go on to spend more than half his life waiting to be hanged. <\/p>\n
New evidence led to his release in 2014 pending a retrial, which acquitted him last year. <\/p>\n
His case brought global scrutiny to Japan\u2019s criminal justice system, where conviction rates stand at 99%, according to the Ministry of Justice website, and fueled calls to abolish the death penalty in the country. <\/p>\n
Hakamata was \u201cliving in his own world,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes he smiles happily, but that\u2019s when he\u2019s in his delusion\u2026 We have not even discussed the trial with Iwao because of his inability to recognize reality.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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