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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Spain's ex-US death row inmate speaks out

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Former death row inmate Joaquin Martinez, who was acquitted of a double homicide in the US state of Florida after five years behind bars, will be campaigning for the abolition of capital punishment in an international congress to be held in Madrid this week.

Twelve years after leaving death row in Florida, Joaquin Martinez still cannot abide traditional lightbulbs.

"At the time we still had the electric chair and just like in the movies, the bulbs flickered and went out when they executed someone," said Martinez, who is visiting Madrid to join the fifth World Congress against the Death Penalty.

"I don’t have any normal light bulbs at home, just halogens," he said.

His hair impeccably brushed back, the well-dressed 41-year-old Spaniard was arrested in 1996 in Florida on suspicion of double murder before being found not guilty by the US justice system and freed in 2001.

"I still dream sometimes that I am a prisoner. I wake up with a shudder," he said in a presentation event ahead of the June 12-15 congress, organised by the French lobby group Ensemble Contre La Peine de Mort (Together Against the Death Penalty).

Organizers say they expect 1,500 people from 90 countries, including high-profile politicians such as French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, to gather for the congress.

The debate will be punctuated by testimony from people who were once condemned to death or the relatives of those now living on death row.

Another Spaniard, 40-year-old Pablo Ibar, has now spent 19 years under lock and key in the same Florida death row that Joaquin Martinez left behind.

Arrested in 1994 for triple murder, Ibar was condemned to death in 2000. Ever since, his relatives have proclaimed his innocence.


Source: The Local, Agence France-Presse, June 11, 2013
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