High Court to Decide Whether to Reopen 1966 Murder Retrial March 13

Tokyo, Feb. 6 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo High Court is set to decide whether to reopen a high-profile 1966 murder case in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, on March 13, defense lawyers in the case said Monday.

The development comes after the Supreme Court ordered the high court in 2020 to revoke its earlier decision to deny a retrial for Iwao Hakamata, 86, and redo its deliberations.

The focus of the case is whether five items of clothing found inside a miso tank about 14 months after the murder can be recognized as the clothing worn by the perpetrator at the crime scene.

In the case, which took place in the city of Shimizu, now part of the city of Shizuoka, the capital of the prefecture, an executive of a miso maker and three family members were murdered. Hakamata was sentenced to death by Shizuoka District Court in 1968, and the sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in 1980.

Hakamata was released after the district court decided to give him a retrial in 2014, but the decision was overturned by Tokyo High Court later.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]