Japan Compensates Wrongfully Convicted Ex-Death Row Inmate Iwao Hakamada with $1.4 Million

Iwao Hakamada, formerly the world's longest-serving death row inmate, received $1.4 million in compensation from Japan following his exoneration in 2024 for a 1966 quadruple murder. The Shizuoka District Court awarded Hakamada 12,500 yen ($83) for each of the 46 years he spent in detention, largely on death row. Hakamada, now 89 and a former boxer, was acquitted after a retrial where the court determined that police had tampered with evidence and subjected him to coercive interrogations, leading to a false confession he later retracted. While a record for this type of compensation, Hakamada's legal team argues the sum does not fully account for the severe mental health toll caused by decades of wrongful imprisonment and the constant threat of execution. Hakamada is the fifth death row inmate in Japan's postwar history to be granted a retrial and subsequently exonerated.