A Japanese man who spent more than 40 years on death row before being exonerated last year has been handed a record payout.

Iwao Hakamada, 89, was wrongly convicted for a quadruple murder in 1968 and sentenced to be hanged.

The retired professional boxer has now been awarded an eye-watering $1.4 million in compensation – roughly $85 for each day he was erroneously imprisoned.

The Shizuoka District Court confirmed that Hakamada had received more than 217 million yen, reports CNN.

Hakamada’s legal representative Hideyo Ogawa described the compensation as the ‘highest amount’ ever handed out for a wrongful conviction in Japan but said it could never make up for the suffering endured by the Japanese national.

‘I think the state (government) has made a mistake that cannot be atoned for with 200 million yen,’ the lawyer said, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

Hakamada was cleared of any wrongdoing when a DNA test showed that the bloodstained clothing which was used to convict him was planted long after the murders, NHK reports. 

In 1961 Hakamada retired as a professional boxer and got a job at a soybean processing plant in Shizuoka, central Japan. 

Iwao Hakamada, 89, was wrongly convicted for a quadruple murder in 1968 and had been the world’s longest-serving death-row inmate until his acquittal

The former boxer has now been awarded an eye-watering $1.4 million in compensation – roughly $85 for each day he was erroneously imprisoned

Hakamada’s legal representative Hideyo Ogawa described the compensation as the ‘highest amount’ ever handed out for a wrongful conviction in Japan, but said it could never make up for the suffering endured by Hakamada

Five years later he was arrested by police after his boss, his boss’ wife and their two children were found stabbed to death in their home.

Until he was freed in 2014, pending retrial, Hakamada had been on death row for 46 years after being convicted of the killings. 

But over the years, questions arose over fabricated evidence and coerced confessions, sparking scrutiny of Japan’s justice system, which critics say holds suspects ‘hostage’.

Hakamada was granted a retrial in 2023 and was found not guilty in 2024.

Hundreds of people had queued at the Shizuoka District Court, trying to secure a seat for the verdict in the murder saga that gripped the nation.

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 granted a retrial in Japan’s post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exoneration.

Hakamada was granted a retrial in 2023 and was found not guilty in 2024. Hundreds of people had queued at the Shizuoka District Court, trying to secure a seat for the verdict in the murder saga that gripped the nation

Until he was freed in 2014 pending retrial, Hakamada had been on death row for 46 years after being convicted of the killings

After decades of detention, mostly in solitary confinement, Hakamada sometimes seems like he ‘lives in a world of fantasy’, according to his lead lawyer Hideyo Ogawa.

Speaking to AFP in 2018, Hakamada underlined his ongoing battle to obtain an acquittal, saying he felt he was ‘fighting a bout every day’.

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

Outside the court, Hakamada’s supporters held flags and banners calling for a not-guilty verdict.

Atsushi Zukeran, wearing a T-shirt saying ‘Free Hakamada Now’, told AFP he was ‘absolutely certain he will be acquitted’ due to the qualms over the evidence.

But given how long the affair has dragged on, with Hakamada maintaining his innocence throughout, ‘part of me wouldn’t be able to celebrate the acquittal entirely’, Zukeran said.

‘His case is a painful reminder of how Japan’s criminal justice system must change,’ he added.

Although the Supreme Court upheld Hakamada’s death sentence in 1980, his supporters fought for decades to have the case reopened.

A turning point came in 2014 when a retrial was granted on the grounds that prosecutors could have planted evidence, and Hakamada was released from prison.

At the retrial Hakamada’s supporters held flags and banners calling for a not-guilty verdict

Hakamada is the fifth death row inmate granted a retrial in Japan’s post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exoneration

Legal wrangling, including a pushback by prosecutors, meant it took until 2023 for the trial to begin.

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

Central to the trial was a set of blood-stained clothes found in a tank of miso – fermented soybean paste – a year after the 1966 murders, used as evidence to incriminate Hakamada.

The defence accused investigators of a set-up, as the red stains on the clothes were too bright, but prosecutors said their own experiments showed the colour was credible.

In Japan, death row prisoners are notified of their hanging only a few hours in advance.

As of December, 107 prisoners were waiting for their death sentences to be carried out. It is always done by hanging.

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

‘Suspects are forced to confess through long and arbitrary periods of detention’ and there is often ‘intimidation during interrogation’, he said.