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
Bogotá and Quito Seek Dialogue After Tariffs and Power Cut Escalate Tensions
Bogotá and Quito will hold an emergency bilateral summit next week amid recent developments that have strained relations between the two countries.
Tensions escalated this week after Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa unexpectedly announced a 30% tariff on Colombian imports. Colombia responded with a reciprocal measure, imposing the same tariff on around 20 Ecuadorian products and suspending electricity exports to Ecuador.
Aware that electricity imports are critical to easing Ecuador’s recent energy crises, Quito further imposed a 30% tariff on the transportation of Colombian oil through its territory.
However, recent statements from the Ecuadorian government suggest that dialogue between the two sides has intensified in recent hours. Ecuador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabriela Sommerfeld, confirmed that active conversations are under way.
In Colombia, segments of the business sector have welcomed the prospect of negotiations. The National Business Council (Consejo Gremial Nacional, CGN), for instance, urged both governments to restore commercial relations, warning that the dispute “puts jobs and regional economic stability at risk.”
International
Trump-Era Defense Plan Prioritizes Border Security and Scales Back Global Commitments
The U.S. military will prioritize the defense of the homeland and the deterrence of China, while providing more limited support to its allies and elevating Latin America as a key focus of its agenda, according to a Pentagon strategic document released on Friday.
The 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) represents a significant shift from previous Pentagon policies, both in its emphasis on allies assuming greater responsibility with reduced backing from Washington and in its more moderate tone toward traditional adversaries such as China and Russia.
“As U.S. forces focus on defending the homeland and the Indo-Pacific, allies and partners elsewhere will assume primary responsibility for their own defense, with crucial but more limited support from U.S. forces,” the document states.
The previous defense strategy, published during President Joe Biden’s administration, described China as Washington’s most consequential challenge and characterized Russia as an “acute threat.”
The new strategy, however, calls for maintaining “respectful relations” with Beijing and makes no reference to Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by China and allied with the United States. It also describes the threat posed by Russia as “persistent but manageable,” particularly affecting NATO’s eastern members.
While both the Biden-era strategy and the Trump administration’s approach emphasize the importance of defending U.S. territory, they differ significantly in their assessment of the challenges facing the country.
The Trump administration’s NDS sharply criticizes the previous government for neglecting border security, arguing that this failure led to an “influx of illegal immigrants” and widespread narcotics trafficking.
International
Guatemala considers sending high-risk gang members to military prisons
Amid the escalating crisis in Guatemala’s prison system, the government is considering transferring high-risk gang members to military-run detention facilities, a move that analysts say could help address overcrowding and the lack of control in civilian prisons.
The debate has gained urgency following the killing of ten police officers by gang members, reportedly in retaliation after the government refused to meet demands made by Aldo Dupie Ochoa, alias “El Lobo,” leader of the Barrio 18 gang, which authorities identified as responsible for the attack.
Guatemala’s Minister of Defense, Henry David Sáenz, told local media that the possibility of relocating high-danger inmates to military brigades has not been formally discussed. However, he noted that the practice is not new to the Armed Forces and said it is something that “was already being done.”
One example is the detention center located within the Mariscal Zavala Military Brigade, in Zone 17 of Guatemala City, where several inmates are held under military supervision. The facility also houses high-profile detainees, including former official Eduardo Masaya, who faces corruption charges.
In 2015, a ministerial agreement authorized the establishment of the Zone Seventeen Detention Center within the brigade, with a maximum capacity of 114 inmates in Area A and 21 in Area B. The agreement specified that the facility would be used exclusively for civilians or military personnel considered at risk of assassination.
Additionally, since 2010, a prison has operated within the Matamoros Barracks in Zone 1 of Guatemala City, holding dangerous or high-profile inmates. However, media outlets have described these military detention centers as “VIP prisons,” particularly for former government officials such as ex-president Otto Pérez Molina.
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