Lindsay Hawker's body was found buried in sand in a bathtub in a flat near Tokyo A Japanese man has been sentenced to life in jail for the rape and murder of a British teacher found dead in a sand-filled bathtub.
Tatsuya Ichihashi, 32, had admitted killing, but denied murdering, Lindsay Hawker, 22, from Brandon, near Coventry, at his home near Tokyo.He also admitted raping the English teacher, but said he tried to revive her after accidentally suffocating her.
She was last seen alive after giving her killer an English lesson, in 2007.
'Battered-and-bound' At an earlier hearing Miss Hawker's father, Bill, had asked the court to give Ichihashi the "heaviest punishment" possible.
The judges and jurors jointly hearing his murder trial at Chiba District Court sentenced him to a life term on Thursday.
Under Japanese law the killer could theoretically have been given the death penalty, but prosecutors called for him to be jailed for life instead.
Ichihashi, who went on the run, published a book in which he confessed to the killing and described how he had cosmetic surgery to change his appearance.
Ichihashi altered his appearance using cosmetic surgery while on the run The Leeds University graduate was found dead at Ichihashi's apartment in Ichikawa City, east of Tokyo, in March 2007.
Ichihashi went on the run after Japanese police discovered the teacher's battered-and-bound body, buried naked in the bathtub on the balcony of his flat.
He was arrested at a ferry terminal in the city of Osaka, in western Japan in November 2009.
Ichihashi claimed he wrote Until The Arrest as a "gesture of contrition for the crime I committed" and has promised to donate all proceeds to Miss Hawker's family.
He told his trial on 4 July that he enticed Miss Hawker into his apartment, raped her and then strangled her because he feared neighbours would hear her screams and call the police.
He admitted causing her death but said he did not intend to murder her and could not remember strangling her.
Miss Hawker was last seen alive after giving her killer an English lesson in a coffee shop on 25 March 2007.
Mr Hawker, Lindsay Hawker's mother, Julia, and the victim's sisters, Lisa and Louise, flew into Tokyo's Narita airport on Wednesday.
Holding a photograph of his daughter, Mr Hawker told Japanese reporters: "We expect to get the judgment we are hoping for."
No comments:
Post a Comment