JAPAN: DEATH ROW INMATE, 75 TODAY, SHOULD BE GRANTED A STAY OF EXECUTION

March 10, 2011: a man in Japan who has spent 43 years on death row and is 75 today, should be granted a stay of execution, removed from death row and his case reviewed, Amnesty International and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) said.
Amnesty's Clare Bracey said “With over half of that time spent in solitary confinement, and not knowing if each day might be his last, it is no wonder that Hakamada Iwao is suffering from physical and mental ill health.”
Article 479 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides for a person to be granted a stay of execution in cases where the person is found to be suffering from mental illness.
Iwao has been on death row since 1968. He was convicted after an unfair trial of the 1966 murder of the managing director of the factory where he worked, and the man's wife and two children. (Sources: Amnesty.org.uk, 10/03/2011)