The new sentence recognizes the falsification of evidence that incriminated the former professional boxer who has been imprisoned since 1966.
Two years later the man was sentenced to death for the murder of the owner of the fermented soybean factory where he worked and his family (wife and two children in common).
Although Hakamada admitted guilt years ago, he later claimed in court that he had been brutally tortured to extract a confession to the crime.
After a new investigation showed in 2014 that DNA from bloody clothes collected at the crime scene did not match Hakamada’s, the Japanese national was released from prison pending a retrial.
By then, he had already entered the Guinness Book of Records as the man with the longest time on death row.
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