Businessman cleared over Lucie murder

Property developer Joji Obara, 54, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of a series of rapes and the death of an Australian woman.

But the Tokyo District Court acquitted him of all charges relating to Miss Blackman, 21, from Sevenoaks, Kent, who disappeared in July 2000 while working as a bar hostess in Tokyo.

The former British Airways flight attendant's dismembered body was discovered in a cave near Obara's apartment seven months after she vanished.

Responding to today's verdict, Matt Searle from the Lucie Blackman Trust admitted: "This is not what we were expecting."

Members of Miss Blackman's family were in court and were told the verdict by an interpreter, he said.

Mr Searle said he had heard the 1,600 days Obara has already spent in jail would be deducted from his sentence.

He added that he understood prisoners given a life sentence in Japan could be eligible for parole after 10 years.

Obara was sentenced to life for nine rapes, including the attack that led to the death of Australian Carita Ridgway.

Miss Ridgway, 21, a drama student who also worked as a bar hostess in Tokyo, died of a drug overdose after being raped by Obara in 1992.

But her case was not linked to the businessman until Miss Blackman's disappearance eight years later.

Another two of the rapes Obara was convicted of involved foreign women he met at Tokyo hostess clubs.

The prosecution alleged Obara drugged and raped Miss Blackman before she died, then chopped her body up into 10 pieces and encased her head in concrete at his luxury apartment.

In February 2001 her decomposed remains were discovered in a cave just 100 yards from Obara's four-storey block.

Miss Blackman's father Tim Blackman, who has led a campaign to secure justice for his daughter, has been criticised for accepting £450,000 from a friend of Obara.

His ex-wife Jane Steare accused him yesterday of "colluding with the defence team" and acting like Judas by accepting "blood money".

Mr Blackman responded by describing her comments as "absolutely, entirely inappropriate".

He said: "This is a really important time in Lucie's case and there could have been any time in the last eight or nine months when she could raise these issues.

"But to do it on the eve of Lucie's hearing just is inexcusable."

Defendants in Japan who admit their guilt can pay compensation to their victims or their grieving families as part of the court process and as a way of expressing remorse.

Judges then take the payments into consideration when passing sentence.

The family of Miss Ridgway rejected Obara's offer of 500,000 Australian dollars (£200,000), but he is believed to have paid around £10,000 to at least one of his rape victims.

Today's verdict comes as Japanese police continue to hunt the killer of a British woman whose body was found in a sand-filled bathtub at an apartment outside Tokyo last month.

Language teacher Lindsay Hawker had been beaten and suffocated. Police are still looking for the prime suspect, Tatsuya Ichihashi, 28.

Miss Ridgway's family is calling for an independent inquiry into Tokyo police's handling of the investigation into her death.

In a statement reported in The Times, the family said: "It is imperative that there should be an inquiry into the lack of action on the part of the Japanese police in 1992, and also in 2000, when Lucie Blackman went missing...

"He has only been brought to trial for the rapes of 10 of those victims. There were scores of victims."