A chief public prosecutor in central Japan on Wednesday apologized in person to an 88-year-old man who was acquitted in a retrial over a 1966 quadruple murder case, after spending more than four decades on death row.

The chief of the Shizuoka District Public Prosecutors Office apologized to a former death row inmate at his home here on Nov. 2･･･

The head of a public prosecutors’ office in Shizuoka Prefecture on Wednesday (Nov 27) apologised directly to Iwao Hakamada, who was recently acquitted in a retrial decades after he was convicted over the 1966 murder of four people.

The Shizuoka District Court last September acquitted Iwao Hakamata, ruling that investigation authorities had fabricated evidence in the 1966 murder case.

A senior Japanese public prosecutor on Wednesday bowed in apology to Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest-serving death row prisoner whose conviction was quashed this year.