International
Who is Iwao Hakamada, the inmate acquitted after 47 years waiting for a death sentence?
Former professional boxer, converted to Christianity in prison, Iwao Hakamada spent 47 years behing bars waiting for a death sentence that never came and from which the Japanese justice acquitted him this Thursday. It was the end of a tireless struggle to defend his innocence.
Hakamada (Shizuoka, 1936) was sentenced to death in 1968 after being accused of murdering two years earlier the owner of the miso factory (fermented soy) in which he worked, his wife and the couple’s two children and then burning his house.
He tirelessly defended his innocence on the grounds that the evidence that incriminated him was actually manufactured against him, mainly garments found in one of the company’s miso tanks, stained with blood and that matched his DNA. The Japanese justice has finally proved him right.
At 88 years old, with a weakened mental condition due to the almost half century he spent bands (so he holds a Guinness record), the Shizuoka District Court acquitted him this Thursday after the repetition of his trial, a procedure uncommon in Japan, but accepted for Hakamada in 2014.
The former Japanese boxer was released that year from prison, but the magistrates exempted him from appearing in the new trial due to his impaired mental condition. His sister, Hideko Hakamada, and his lawyer, Hideyo Ogawa, two of the pillars of the former convice, took over.
19 days and 228 hours of interrogation
Although he denied the facts when he was arrested in 1966, Hakamada took the charges on September 6 of the same year to “protect his life,” as he said at the time, on the nineteenth day of an interrogation that lasted an average of 12 hours a day.
He again denied having committed the crime in the first hearing of the initial trial and continued to do so in the thousand letters he sent to his family from prison.
The first was written in 1967 and was addressed to his mother, who died the following year although he did not know it until months later.
“It’s been half a year since I last saw you. I’m fine. I’m sorry my family is worried about me. I really have nothing to do with the Kogane Miso incident. I am innocent,” read the manuscript, compiled and published by the Japanese newspaper Asahi, along with the hundreds of letters that happened to the first one.
“They looked a little like my clothes, but there are so many clothes in the world that look like…”, Hakamada wrote before being sentenced in relation to the garments found in the miso tank.
Capital penalty
Hakamada was sentenced to death penalty because the blood with which the clothes found immersed in miso were stained matched his DNA, but the Japanese defended from the beginning that it was a fabricated evidence against him and appealed the sentence.
“I saw them (the blood-stained pants) in court. They seemed too small to me, no matter how I looked at them. If they don’t go well for me, the accusation against me will disappear,” Hakamada wrote in another of the letters to his family.
It was shown that the pants did not correspond to the size of the ex-contain, but the prosecutors and the authorities in charge of the investigation of the case argued that the clothes were small because Hakamada gained weight in prison.
Another of the former boxer’s arguments in the defense of his innocence was that the color of the blood was too dark, a thesis that prosecutors and investigators refuted claiming that the red had acquired a brownish tone by soaking the clothes in miso.
The appeal was rejected, but Hakamada requested in 1981 the repetition of the trial of his case, which was not accepted until 2014, after the prosecution revealed color photographs of the clothing that made the Shizuoka Court doubt the veracity of the evidence due to the color of the blood.
Hakamada’s release was ordered by the Japanese justice 17,388 days after his arrest, when a second trial was accepted, and the Japanese was released from prison at the age of 78.
A life in freedom with his sister
At the current age of 88, Hakamada lives in Hamamatsu, a city located in Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, with his sister Hideko, three years older than him.
He continues to show symptoms of the “institutional psychosis” that was diagnosed in 2008, a mental illness that some prisoners develop and that manifests itself in the form of dizziness, headaches, nausea and paranoia. He also claims to be God.
International
Luigi Mangione Pleads Guilty to Killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
Luigi Mangione admitted Friday to fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance group in the United States, during an appearance before a federal judge.
The case shocked the U.S. business community and dates back to December 2024, when Mangione opened fire on Thompson, 50, on a Manhattan street. Prosecutors have described the attack as being motivated by Mangione’s opposition to the U.S. health insurance system.
“On the morning of December 4, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione said as he pleaded guilty to a federal stalking charge related to his pursuit of the executive.
Mangione, 28, is scheduled to be sentenced on December 18, and prosecutors have indicated that they will seek a life sentence.
In addition to the federal charges related to stalking Thompson, Mangione also faces a murder case brought by the state of New York.
Following his guilty plea in federal court, Mangione’s defense asked a state court to dismiss the state charges, arguing that prosecuting him again for the same conduct would violate protections against double jeopardy.
“We have just filed our motion in state court to explain why the charges should be dismissed under New York’s protections against double jeopardy,” Mangione’s attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said Friday.
Both the federal and state cases could result in a life sentence. Two other federal charges that initially carried the possibility of the death penalty were dismissed by a judge earlier this year.
International
ICE Plan to Equip Agents With Electric Shock Gloves Raises Abuse Concerns
Plans to equip U.S. immigration agents with gloves capable of delivering electric shocks are raising concerns over potential abuses by a law enforcement agency that critics accuse of using excessive force and providing inadequate training to its personnel.
The plan involves the potential purchase of electric-shock gloves for agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency primarily responsible for carrying out President Donald Trump’s campaign to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost criticized the proposal on X, arguing that the agency has already faced accusations of excessive force during immigration enforcement operations.
“As if assaulting and shooting people in the streets wasn’t enough,” Frost wrote. He also criticized the reported $20 million potential expenditure on the devices and called for greater restrictions on ICE.
The agency has faced growing scrutiny following a series of deadly shootings during immigration enforcement operations. Among the incidents were the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January who were participating in protests against the agency.
Critics have focused on the tactics used by ICE agents when detaining immigrants, as well as allegations that training standards for newly recruited personnel have been lowered.
According to a procurement plan first reported by the Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, could spend between $10 million and $20 million on the devices.
The gloves are described by the agency as tools intended for “distraction and de-escalation,” rather than lethal weapons. The system, known as GLOVE, stands for “Generated Low-Output Voltage Emitter.”
The device is manufactured by Compliant Technologies, a Kentucky-based company that describes its products as advanced non-lethal tools designed to protect and assist law enforcement and other personnel.
The proposal comes amid an intensifying national debate over ICE’s enforcement methods and the use of force during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
International
Three U.S. Executions Set for Same Day as Trump Pushes to Expand Death Penalty
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 U.S. states, while three others —California, Oregon and Pennsylvania— currently have moratoriums in place.
The United States is set to carry out three executions on the same day, a rare occurrence that has not happened since 2010, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
President Donald Trump has sought to expand the use of capital punishment for what he describes as “the most heinous crimes.” In April, the Department of Justice proposed expanding execution methods to include firing squads, lethal gas and electrocution.
Tennessee is scheduled to execute Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines, 66, on Thursday. He was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of a woman, according to local media.
In Oklahoma, Carlos Cuesta-Rodríguez, 70, is scheduled to be executed for a 2003 murder.
Meanwhile, Alabama plans to execute Jeremy Williams, 42, who was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl.
The United States carried out 47 executions in 2025, the highest number since 2009, when 52 executions were recorded.
Florida conducted the largest number of executions last year, with 19, followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, with five each.
Of the executions carried out in 2025, 39 were conducted by lethal injection. Three were carried out by firing squad and five through nitrogen hypoxia, a method that involves forcing nitrogen gas into a face mask, depriving the prisoner of oxygen.
The United Nations has condemned nitrogen gas as a cruel and inhumane method of capital punishment.
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