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.

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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.

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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.

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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

Kristi Noem credits Trump for mass migrant deportations by mexican president

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has deported “more than half a million” migrants due to pressure from former President Donald Trump.

During a cabinet meeting highlighting the “achievements” of Trump’s administration in its first 100 days, Noem asserted that under the Republican leader’s influence, “Mexico has finally come to the table” to negotiate on migration and fentanyl trafficking.

“The president of Mexico told me she has returned just over half a million people before they reached our border,” Noem stated, criticizing media reports that suggest the Biden administration deported more migrants than Trump’s.

“I wish those deportations were counted,” Noem added, “because those people never made it to our border—she sent them back because you made her.” She went on to thank Trump: “They never made it here because they got the message—because you were so aggressive.”

Noem has made controversial claims about Sheinbaum in the past, prompting the Mexican leader to refute them.

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On April 1, Sheinbaum responded to one such statement by declaring, “The president answers to only one authority, and that is the people of Mexico,” after Noem said on Fox News that she gave Sheinbaum “a list of things Trump would like to see” and that Mexico’s actions would determine whether Trump granted tariff relief.

International

Vatican releases special “Sede Vacante” stamps ahead of papal transition

he Vatican’s post offices and select collector shops began selling special edition stamps this week to mark the period between the death of Pope Francis and the election of his successor.

Known as “Sede Vacante” stamps, they feature an image used on official Vatican documents during the interregnum between popes — two crossed keys without the papal tiara. These stamps went on sale Monday and will remain valid for postal use only until the new pontiff appears at the window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

Until then, they can be used to send letters, postcards, and parcels. “Once the new pope is elected, the stamps lose their postal validity, but their collectible value rises,” said Francesco Santarossa, who runs a collectors’ shop across from St. Peter’s Square.

The Vatican has issued the stamps in four denominations: €1.25, €1.30, €2.45, and €3.20. Each is inscribed with “Città del Vaticano” and “Sede Vacante MMXXV” — Latin for “Vacant See 2025.”

International

Conclave to choose pope Francis’ successor could begin in early may

The conclave, which in the coming weeks must choose the successor to Pope Francis, will strictly follow a precise protocol refined over centuries.

The 135 cardinal electors, all under the age of 80, will cast their votes four times a day — except on the first day — until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority. The result will be announced to the world through the burning of the ballots with a chemical that produces the eagerly awaited white smoke, accompanied by the traditional cry of “Habemus Papam.”

The start date for the conclave could be announced today, as the cardinals are set to hold their fifth meeting since the pope’s passing. Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich suggested it could begin on May 5 or 6, following the traditional nine days of mourning. According to German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the conclave could last only “a few days.”

Although the late Argentine pontiff appointed the majority of the cardinal electors, this does not necessarily ensure the selection of a like-minded successor. Francis’ leadership style differed significantly from that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, a German theologian who was less fond of large public gatherings. It also marked a contrast with the popular Polish pope, John Paul II.

The Argentine Jesuit’s reformist papacy drew strong criticism from more conservative sectors of the Church, who are hoping for a doctrinally focused shift. His tenure was marked by efforts to combat clerical sexual abuse, elevate the role of women and laypeople, and advocate for the poor and migrants, among other causes.