Hakamata Gets 217 M. Yen in Compensation after Acquittal

Shizuoka, March 25 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese court has granted Iwao Hakamata, who was acquitted in a retrial last year over a 1966 murder case, some 217 million yen in compensation for being unjustly detained for over 47 years, his lawyers said Tuesday.

The sum marks the biggest amount of criminal compensation granted in the country, the lawyers said.

The 89-year-old was acquitted in September last year over the murder of four people in the central prefecture of Shizuoka, a decision that became final the following month after prosecutors did not appeal it.

He was arrested in August 1966, and his death sentence once became final in 1980. He had been detained for about 47 years and seven months until his release in March 2014 after Shizuoka District Court granted him a retrial.

In his decision on the compensation on Monday, Koshi Kunii, presiding judge at the court, said that Hakamata "suffered extreme mental and physical anguish as he was in custody for about 33 years only awaiting execution."

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]