Japanese man nears half century on death row 77-year-old is believed to be the world’s longest-serving condemned inmate AFPPublished: 13:52 July 6, 2013 Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on printMore Sharing Services3 Image Credit: AFP Hideko Hakamada, sister of former boxer Iwao Hakamada who has been on death row in Japan for 47 years, shows a picture of her young brother Iwao during an interview outside the Tokyo Detention House in Tokyo on May 20, 2013. Tokyo: Iwao Hakamada worked at a soybean processing factory east of Tokyo when he was arrested and later sentenced to death for the grisly murder of his boss and the man’s family. Hakamada was 30 years old. The year was 1966. The United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War space race, Star Trek was in its first season and Japanese factories were busy pumping out a consumer product that would power its economic boom: colour televisions. Nearly five decades later the Soviet Union is a relic of history, Star Trek is a global franchise, while Japan’s world-beating economy is recovering from 20 years of tepid growth. And Hakamada, once a professional boxer, is a frail old man who spends his days in a solitary prison cell. The 77-year-old is believed to be the world’s longest-serving condemned inmate, a man supporters say has lost his grip on reality while awaiting death by hanging — or old age — even as questions over his guilt emerge. Article continues below “What I am worried about most is Iwao’s health. If you put someone in jail for 47 years, it’s too much to expect them to stay sane,” Hakamada’s now 80-year-old sister Hideko said outside the Tokyo Detention House. Hakamada now refuses monthly visits from his sister and “talks nonsense”, she said as rain fell outside the imposing prison in the Japanese capital, one of seven institutions across the country where condemned inmates are sent to the gallows. She last saw her brother almost three years ago. “Before, when I asked him ‘are you okay?’, he said ‘yep’. I only want to hear that single world,” she said. Apart from the United States, Japan is the only major industrialised democracy to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has led to repeated protests from European governments and human rights groups. The death penalty in Japan is usually reserved for multiple murderers, including the masterminds of the 1995 sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway which left 13 dead and thousands more injured. It carries out a handful of executions every year. Japan’s 134 death-row inmates face an austere existence, usually confined to their cells with little or no contact with other inmates. The strict regimen includes limited daily exercise and occasional entertainment such as being allowed to watch television. Prisoners are typically notified about their impending deaths just hours before they are hanged. Their families are told only after the execution. “Part of the problem in Japan is everything is still a little bit too secretive about the process,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s East Asia chief. Sachie Monma, among a group of Hakamada’s supporters gathered at the prison, added: “We must tell people how the death penalty works in Japan. If the public understood how cruel the system is, things would change.” Despite a handful of death-row exonerations in Japan, capital punishment still draws broad support, although meaningful public debate on the issue is rare. In 2010, then-Justice minister Keiko Chiba for the first time allowed media to see the Tokyo prison’s gallows in a bid to stoke a national discussion on the issue. But ministers before and after Chiba have all shut down the idea of making executions more visible, fearing it would shock the public. Current justice minister Sadakazu Tanigaki says capital punishment is necessary to satisfy public demands that violent crime be punished severely. “I believe there are adequate grounds for the current system, considering the sentiment of the public and crime victims,” he said after taking office in December.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:04:17 +0000
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