Sakae Menda, 76, a former Japanese death row inmate...

Sakae Menda, 76, a former Japanese death row inmate who had spent 32 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, appealed to do away with capital punishment worldwide at the opening of the first world congress against the death penalty in Strasbourg. "I pray that the death penalty will disappear from the face of the earth," he said.
Menda, a black-market vendor who became the prime suspect following the murder of a couple in Kumamoto Prefecture in 1948, was convicted and sentenced to death.
A retrial in July 1983 cleared Menda, who became the first death row inmate in Japan to regain his freedom.