Japan prosecutors will not appeal acquittal of world's longest death-row inmate in retrial

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Japan prosecutors will not appeal acquittal of world's longest death-row inmate in retrial

2024-10-08 19:51 Last Updated At：20:01

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese prosecutors said Tuesday they will not appeal the acquittal of the world’s longest-serving death-row inmate in a retrial last month, bringing closure to the 1966 murder case after more than a half-century of legal battles.

Prosecutor-general Naomi Unemoto said the prosecution decided not to appeal the Shizuoka District Court decision that found Iwao Hakamada not guilty in a retrial 58 years after his arrest, saying: “We feel sorry for putting him in a legally unstable situation for an extremely long time.”

Hakamada, an 88-year-old former boxer, was found not guilty on Oct. 26 by the Shizuoka court, which concluded that police and prosecutors collaborated in fabricating and planting evidence against him. The court said he was forced into confession by violent, hourslong interrogations.

The top prosecutors’ decision to not appeal two days before the Oct. 10 deadline finalizes Hakamada’s acquittal by the district court.

”I’m delighted that we finally resolved this. Case closed,” his 91-year-old sister Hideko Hakamada told reporters after getting a phone call from her lawyer about the prosecutors’ decision.

“I kind of knew this was going to happen,” Hakamada said, with a laugh.

Unemoto, in a statement on the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office website, also apologized for Hakamada's decades-long unstable legal situation amid a lengthy court process and pledged to investigate why the retrial took so long.

Hakamada was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of an executive and three of his family members and setting fire to their home in central Japan. He was sentenced to death in 1968 but was not executed, due to the lengthy appeal and retrial process in Japan’s notoriously slow-paced justice system.

Hakamada became the fifth death row inmate to be found not guilty in a retrial in postwar Japan, where prosecutors have a more than 99% conviction rate and retrials are extremely rare.

He spent more than 45 years on death row, making him the world’s longest-serving death-row inmate, according to Amnesty International.

With Tuesday’s settlement of the retrial ruling, Hakamada is now entitled to receive government compensation of up to about 200 million yen ($1.4 million).

His lawyer Hideyo Ogawa has said his defense team is considering filing a damage suit against the government and the Shizuoka prefecture over the collaboration of prosecutors and police in fabricating evidence, despite knowing it could send Hakamada to the gallows.

Hezbollah leader says more Israelis will be displaced as the militants extend their rocket fire

2024-10-08 19:53 Last Updated At：20:00

Sheikh Naim Kassem, the acting leader of Hezbollah, said its military capabilities are still intact and that it has replaced all of its senior commanders after weeks of heavy Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon, including targeted strikes that killed much of its top command in a matter of days.

He also said Israeli forces have not been able to advance after launching a ground incursion into Lebanon last week. The Israeli military said a fourth division is now taking part in the incursion, which has expanded to the west, but operations still appear to be confined to a narrow strip along the border.

The Israeli military says it has dismantled militant infrastructure along the border and killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters. On Tuesday, it said a strike in Beirut had killed Suhail Husseini, who it described as a senior commander responsible overseeing logistics, budget and management of the militant group.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah, and no way to confirm battlefield claims made by either side.

“We are firing hundreds of rockets and dozens of drones. A large number of settlements and cities are under the fire of the resistance,” Kassem said in a video address, speaking from an undisclosed location. “Our capabilities are fine and our fighters are deployed along the frontlines."

He said Hezbollah's top leadership was directing the war and that the commanders killed by Israel have been replaced. “We have no vacant posts,” he added.

He said that Hezbollah will name a new leader to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a bunker in Beirut last month, “but the circumstances are difficult because of the war.”

The Israeli army said 85 projectiles were launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Tuesday.

Israel’s aerial defense intercepted most of the rockets, the military said. A 70-year-old woman was moderately wounded by shrapnel and Israeli media aired footage of what appeared to be minor damage to buildings near the coastal city of Haifa.

The military also said that it struck Hezbollah targets in the southern Beirut suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, where the militant group is headquartered.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas' surprise attack into Israel ignited the war in Gaza. Hezbollah and Hamas are both allied with Iran, and Hezbollah says its attacks are aimed at aiding the Palestinians. Israel has carried out airstrikes in response and the conflict steadily escalated, erupting into a full-fledged war last month.

The Lebanese militant group has said it will stop the attacks if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, but months of diplomatic efforts on that front have repeatedly stalled.

Israel has inflicted a punishing wave of blows against Hezbollah in recent weeks and says it will keep fighting until tens of thousands of displaced Israeli citizens can return to their homes in the north.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Lebanon and over a million displaced since the fighting escalated in mid-September.

Since then, Hezbollah has extended its rocket fire into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in the country's commercial hub of Tel Aviv. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have also launched missiles that reached central Israel. Most of the projectiles have been intercepted or fallen in open areas, disrupting life in Israel while causing few casualties and little property damage.

Last, week Iran launched its own barrage of some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, in what it said was a response to the killing of Nasrallah, an Iranian general who was with him at the time and Ismail Haniyeh, the top leader of Hamas, who was killed in an explosion in Iran's capital in July.

Israel has vowed to respond to the missile attack, without saying when or how.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is in Washington this week to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The Biden administration says it is opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, which could escalate regional tensions even further.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed around 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. They do not say how many were fighters, but say women and children make up more than half of all fatalities.

Palestinians say heavy fighting is underway in northern Gaza, where Israel has ordered another wholesale evacuation and launched a ground operation.

The north, including Gaza City, was the first target of Israel’s ground offensive. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble and the region has been largely isolated by Israeli troops since last October, when Israeli evacuation orders led up to a million people to flee to the south.

Hundreds of thousands have remained in the north despite the harsh conditions, leading Israel to order another total evacuation in recent days. Israel has barred residents from returning to the north.

Israeli forces are battling Hamas militants in Jabaliya, a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Palestinian residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery were pounding Jabaliya as well as Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, towns near the border.

The Israeli military said it killed around 20 militants in airstrikes and ground fighting in Jabaliya. It said troops located a large quantity of weapons, including grenades and rifles.

The nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital said at least 15 people, including two women and four children, were killed Tuesday in the fighting in Jabaliya. It said the dead included four people who were trying to retrieve bodies.

“The situation is extremely difficult. The bombing and explosions haven’t stopped,” said Mahmoud Abu Shehatah, a Jabaliya resident. “It’s like the first days of the war.”

Goldenberg reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war