In his last words, he told his mother and daughter that he loved them but expressed no remorse and did not repeat his claim of innocence. "I'm OK," he said in tears, strapped to the gurney.

In a retrial that began after he spent 45 years on death row, 88-year-old Iwao Hakamada was found not guilty of a 1966 quadruple homicide.

The ruling by Tokyo's Shizuoka District Court brought an end to Iwao Hamakada's status as the world's longest serving death row inmate.