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- Iwao Hakamada was acquitted after 46 years on death row for a 1968 quadruple murder.
- Hakamada was the longest-serving inmate on death row of any prisoner worldwide.
- Japan and the US are the only G7 countries that use capital punishment.
An 88-year-old man has been acquitted of multiple murders in Japan after spending 46 years on death row — most of them in solitary confinement.
Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest-serving death row inmate, was found guilty in 1968 of murdering his boss, his boss's wife, and their two children and setting fire to their home.
He initially denied the charges but later gave a confession that he would go on to describe as coerced.
In 2014, a judge released Hakamada from jail and granted a retrial after his lawyers argued that evidence against him was fabricated.
It took 10 years for the retrial to declare Hakamada innocent, by which time his mental state had deteriorated too much for him to be present for the proceedings, according to the BBC.
Koshi Kunii, the presiding judge, said there were multiple fabrications of evidence, per Associated Press.
The BBC reported that around 500 people gathered in the court to hear the ruling, with the "Hakamada Incident" being one of Japan's most well known legal cases.
Hakamada's lawyer told CNN that he was subjected to restraints and interrogations for more than 12 hours a day for 23 days straight, without his lawyer present.
"The criminal justice system in Japan has been described as a 'hostage justice system' due to the abusive treatment of suspects in pre-trial detention," said Saul Lehrfreund, Executive Director at the Death Penalty Project.
Lehrfreund told BI that Japanese prisoners on death row are held in solitary confinement, subject to 24/7 surveillance, and informed about their execution mere hours before it happens.
"The average period of time spent on death row is 15 years, and executions are carried out in secret, so relatives are not told until after the execution has taken place," said Lehrfreund.
"I've been told that in Japan, every day that an individual wakes up on death row, they fear that it could be their last day."
Japan and the US are the only G7 countries that still enforce the death penalty.