The head of a public prosecutor’s office in Shizuoka Prefecture directly apologized on Wednesday to Iwao Hakamata, who was recently acquitted in a retrial decades after he was convicted of the 1966 murder of four people.
“We are very sorry that your legal status had been unstable for a considerable period of time and you had spent your days in an unspeakable distress,” Hideo Yamada, head of the Shizuoka District Public Prosecutor’s Office, told the 88-year-old former death-row inmate at his home in the city of Hamamatsu.
“As long as we have accepted the acquittal and decided not to appeal, we will not say that the criminal is Mr. Hakamata and we will not regard you as a criminal,” Yamada said.
In response, Hakamata’s 91-year-old sister, Hideko, said: “We have no intention of saying anything to the prosecution now. Now we are very happy that his innocence has been confirmed.”
The Shizuoka District Court acquitted Hakamata in September, ruling that the investigating authorities had fabricated evidence.
In response, Prosecutor-General Naomi Unemoto said the ruling was unacceptable and should be reviewed by a higher court.
Lawyers for Hakamata criticized Unemoto, saying the remarks refer to him as a criminal and could amount to defamation.
Takayoshi Tsuda, chief of Shizuoka Prefectural Police, apologized to Hakamata during a meeting last month.