“Free Hakamada” movement presents request to Tokyo`s High Court

Senior members of the “Free Hakamada” movement handed a written request to the Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office, asking them to issue a full acquittal for former professional boxer Iwao Hakamada, who was sentenced to death in a quadruple murder case in 1966.

Among the 15 attendees at the office were Hakamada’s sister Hideko Hakamada, World Boxing Council light flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji and WBO women’s champion Mizuki Hiruta.
Participants called for the complete and early exoneration of Hakamada, 87, raising their fists in the air wearing white boxing bandages. In presenting the request, the committee asked the prosecution to refrain from claiming that Hakamada is guilty during the retrial which will begin on October 27.

The new trial is expected to end next March, in which Hakamada would be completely acquitted.
Hakamada himself had been released from the Tokyo Detention Center in March 2014 under a ruling by the Shizuoka District Court. But he is still stigmatized as a death row inmate..