Japan frees world's longest-held death row inmate

It took 27 years for the Supreme Court to deny his first appeal for a retrial. He filed a second appeal in 2008, and the court finally ruled in his favor on Thursday.

“It is unbearably unjust to prolong detention of the defendant any further,” said presiding judge Hiroaki Murayama in a ruling statement. “The possibility of his innocence has become clear to a respectable degree.”

Hakamada was convicted of killing a company manager and his family and setting fire to their central Japan home, where he was a live-in employee.

The court said Thursday that DNA analysis obtained by Hakamada's lawyers suggested that investigators had fabricated evidence.

Blood stains detected on five pieces of clothing, which investigators said were worn by the culprit during the crime, did not match the DNA of Hakamada, and trousers that prosecutors submitted as evidence were too small for Hakamada and did not fit when he tried them on.

Shizuoka District deputy chief prosecutor Takashi Nishitani said the ruling was unanticipated and that prosecutors would discuss whether to appeal to a higher court.