Norio Nagayama Sent New Year’s Cards to Iwao Hakamada Saying, “Everyone Is for the Death Row Inmate”

“I’ll be absolutely fine.”

Iwao Hakamada (88) had his acquittal confirmed on October 9, after 58 years since his arrest. Finally, his daily life has returned. Over a month has passed since then—what kind of life is Hakamada leading now?

“He wakes up in the morning and goes for drives with supporters’ cars in the afternoon. He’s living just like he did before the verdict. However, even when people greet him with ‘Mr. Hakamada, congratulations, I’m so happy for you,’ he responds with ‘Oh, thank you,’ as if it were someone else’s business. He doesn’t seem very happy. Despite the joy of the supporters and citizens, Hakamada doesn’t seem very concerned about his acquittal,” said a supporter of Hakamada.

This reaction reveals the tragedy of the case. Despite being innocent, Hakamada was confined for 48 years in prison and forced to live in solitary confinement, often without speaking to anyone. He spent each day living in fear of the death penalty.

While in prison, Hakamada had some small exchanges with other inmates. One of them was Norio Nagayama, a former death row inmate whose book Tears of Ignorance based on his prison notes became a bestseller. In 1968, when Hakamada had appealed his death sentence and was transferred to the Tokyo Detention Center, Nagayama had committed a series of murders with a pistol in Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakodate, and Nagoya, killing four people. After his arrest, Nagayama was imprisoned in the same Tokyo Detention Center as Hakamada. A person who was also incarcerated there at the time reveals this.

“Nagayama would say to Hakamada, ‘Hakamada-san, you’re absolutely going to be okay. Hang in there,’ as they crossed paths during exercise time. Hakamada would reply with a simple ‘Thank you.’ At the time, Nagayama was in the new block of the Tokyo Detention Center, and Hakamada’s solitary cell was in the nearby New North Block, on the third floor. Later, figures such as Shoko Asahara from the Aum Shinrikyo cult and Tomohiro Kato, the perpetrator of the Akihabara stabbing incident, were briefly held in the same New North Block.”

”Be a revolutionary with yourself.”

Nagayama, the former death row inmate, sent New Year’s cards to Hakamada every year while Hakamada was imprisoned. After Hakamada was released in 2014, the actual cards were found in a cardboard box sent from the Tokyo Detention Center to his home in Hamamatsu. The cards are from 1983, 1986, and 1988, and each contains a short message. However, the messages are difficult to understand due to their complex wording. A sociologist familiar with Nagayama offers an interpretation:

“It seems like he is inviting Hakamada to join him as a revolutionary. ‘I committed a crime, but as a criminal, I have uncovered truths about society. Let’s fight together.’ This is the nuance behind the message.”

Nagayama, who was one of Hakamada’s few contacts while in prison, had his death sentence finalized in 1990 and was executed in 1997 at the Tokyo Detention Center. According to a former inmate who was on the same floor, Nagayama resisted violently when he was escorted from his cell to the execution chamber.

Given that Hakamada has been isolated from society for most of his life, we can only hope that he will now be able to live out the remaining years of his life peacefully.