Shizuoka (Japan) (AFP) - The world’s longest-serving death row prisoner was acquitted on Thursday, more than half a century after his murder conviction, when a Japanese court ruled that evidence had been fabricated.

Ailing health prevented 88-year-old former boxer Iwao Hakamada from being in the court to learn the outcome of his retrial, which was granted a decade ago after a long campaign by supporters.

But his 91-year-old sister Hideko, who often speaks for him, bowed deeply to the judge who declared Hakamada innocent.

“Everyone – we won the acquittal, it’s all thanks to your support,” she said outside the Shizuoka District Court, close to tears with her voice cracking.

Hakamada spent 46 years on death row after being convicted in 1968 of robbing and killing his boss, the man’s wife and their two teenage children.

“Investigators tampered with clothes by getting blood on them” which they then hid in a tank of miso, or fermented soybean paste, said Thursday’s ruling, seen by AFP.

It slammed the use of “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement… by imposing mental and physical pain”.

“The prosecution’s records were obtained by effectively infringing on the defendant’s right to remain silent, under circumstances extremely likely to elicit a false confession,” the ruling said.

Hundreds of people queued in the morning to try to secure a seat for the verdict in a murder saga that has gripped the nation and sparked scrutiny of Japan’s justice system.

Prosecutors have two weeks to appeal, according to Japanese media.

Hideko told a post-trial news conference that the not guilty verdict had “sounded divine”.

She wore a white jacket and, asked before the verdict if it symbolised her brother’s innocence, said she had deliberately avoided dark colours.

- ‘A bout every day’ -

Japan is the only major industrialised democracy other than the United States to retain capital punishment, a policy that has broad public support.

Hakamada is the fifth death row inmate

His lead lawyer Hideyo Ogawa said Hakamada sometimes seems like he “lives in a world of fantasy” after decades of detention, mostly in solitary confinement.

Describing his battle to obtain an acquittal to AFP in 2018, Hakamada said he felt he was “fighting a bout every day”.

“Once you think you can’t win, there is no path to victory,” he said.

Hakamada appeared not to be immediately aware of the decision, after Japanese media reported that supporters had removed the batteries from his TV remote control on Thursday.

Hideko had told reporters she wanted to tell him the news soon after the verdict, but at the right moment.

He was filmed shortly after the decision leaving home to go for a walk, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and a green hat.

- ‘Hostage justice’ -

Hakamada initially denied having robbed and murdered the victims in 1966 but then confessed following what he later described as a brutal police interrogation that included beatings.

Ogawa said after the verdict that 58 years had been “too long” to settle the case but “the fact that the judge found falsification on three major issues was also a very significant milestone”.

The Supreme Court upheld Hakamada’s death sentence in 1980 but his supporters kept up the fight to reopen the case.

A retrial was granted in 2014 and Hakamada was released from prison, although legal wrangling meant the proceedings only began last year.

Supporter Atsushi Zukeran, wearing a T-shirt saying “Free Hakamada Now”, said outside the court that the case was “a painful reminder of how Japan’s criminal justice system must change”.

Given how long the affair dragged on, “part of me wouldn’t be able to celebrate the acquittal entirely”, Zukeran said.

Teppei Kasai, Asia programme officer for Human Rights Watch, told AFP Hakamada’s case was “just one of countless examples of Japan’s so-called ‘hostage justice’ system”.

Amnesty International said Hakamada had endured “almost half a century of wrongful imprisonment and a further 10 years waiting for his retrial”.

Boram Jang, the rights group’s East Asia researcher, said that meant the verdict was “an important recognition of the profound injustice he endured for most of his life”.