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Japanese man gets life for killing English teacher

July 21, 2011

A 32-year-old Japanese man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for raping and killing his British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker in 2007.

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This police photo shows Tatsuya Ichihashi before and after cosmetic surgeries
This police photo shows Tatsuya Ichihashi before (L) and after (R) cosmetic surgeriesImage: dapd

As the presiding judge read out the ruling, Tatsuya Ichihashi stared at the ground, as Japanese news television, NTV, reports. Hawker's family, who had gone to Japan to hear the verdict, wiped their tears and nodded many times in approval as the sentence was read out. Hawker's father Bill had earlier urged the Chiba district court to show "no mercy" and to dole out the death penalty, which in Japan is usually reserved for cases of multiple homicide.

Lindsay was 22 when her body, naked and bound at the wrists and ankles, was found in a bathtub filled with sand on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment. The autopsy revealed she died of suffocation; prosecutors said Ichihashi had strangled her after raping her.

Ichihashi testified that he had bound his English teacher and spoke to her for hours, seeking forgiveness for the rape. He said she had choked to death when he covered her mouth to stop her from screaming for help but that he had not mean to kill her.

Father Bill Hawker (C) mother Julia (L) and sister Lisa (R), family of murdered British woman Lindsay Hawker, arrive at Chiba court house
Father Bill Hawker, mother Julia and sister Lisa, family of Lindsay Hawker, arrive at Chiba court houseImage: picture alliance/dpa

On the run

After the killing, Ichihashi ran away, working odd jobs between Aomori in Japan's north and Okinawa in the far south. He used the money he earned to pay for cosmetic surgery, changing his eyelids and nose and removing a facial mole in an effort to evade police.

After Ichihashi went missing, police conducted a nationwide search, hanging wanted posters in police stations and public offices across Japan and offered up to 10 million yen (almost 130,000 US dollars) as a reward for information leading to his arrest. He was caught in November 2009 after a witness tip-off at a ferry terminal as he tried to catch a boat to Okinawa. He wrote a book titled "Until the Arrest" about his life on the run and offered the proceeds to the Hawker family, an offer they have declined.

Author: Shivani Mathur (AFP, Reuters, ap)
Editor: Sarah Berning