Businessman found guilty of abandoning, damaging Blackman's body

TOKYO, Dec. 16 Kyodo -
The Tokyo High Court sentenced a Japanese businessman Tuesday to life in
prison, finding him guilty of kidnapping British woman Lucie Blackman eight
years ago in order to molest her, as well as abandoning and damaging her body
after he had drugged and raped her.

Presiding Judge Hiroshi Kadono effectively maintained a lower court ruling that
imposed a life term on Joji Obara, 56, for raping and drugging nine other
women, one fatally, but acquitted him of all charges involving the actual death
of Blackman due to the lack of evidence.
The three-judge high court panel revoked the lower court's complete acquittal
of Obara over the Blackman case, but handed down to him again a sentence of
life in prison.
Obara had pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, which included
quasi-rape resulting in death or injury, damaging bodies and a number of other
counts over the raping and drugging of the 10 women -- six foreign and four
Japanese.
Among the foreign victims were Blackman and Australian Carita Ridgway. Blackman
was 21 when she went missing in July 2000. Ridgway was also 21 when she died of
severe hepatitis in 1992 after she was drugged and raped by Obara.
The focal point at the high court was how the appeals court would judge
circumstantial evidence provided by prosecutors in the absence of direct
evidence to link the defendant with Blackman's death.
The high court said Obara had apparently attempted to rape her, but it rejected
the prosecutors' argument that the defendant used some drugs like chloroform on
the victim and actually raped her, noting that the cause of her death could not
be specified.
Judge Kadono found Obara guilty of kidnapping Blackman for molestation, saying
the defendant had lured her to his apartment which he used as the place for
drugging and raping the other nine women.
The judge said Obara ''drugged and raped the nine women under careful plans
over a long period of more than eight years,'' accusing the defendant of
committing ''extremely heinous crimes that infringed upon the victims' human
rights.''
In April 2007, the Tokyo District Court sentenced Obara to life in prison as
sought by the prosecution, finding him guilty of charges involving the nine
women.
But the lower court acquitted him of all charges relating to Blackman, saying
the defendant is suspected of being involved in Blackman's death but that there
is no clear evidence to link him directly with it.
The lower court found that Obara drugged and raped the nine women at his
apartment in the seaside city of Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, some 50 kilometers
southwest of central Tokyo, between 1992 and 2000. Ridgway died and two
Japanese women suffered injuries.
It also said that a third party might have been involved in Blackman's death
and that, unlike with the other victims, there is no video recording of the
rape.
In the high court battle, prosecutors insisted there is sufficient evidence of
the defendant's involvement in Blackman's death as he purchased a chainsaw
shortly after she went missing.
They argued that a comprehensive examination of circumstantial evidence proves
that the defendant drugged Blackman, causing her death.
Obara's defense counsel argued that there is no evidence to link their client
with the death of Blackman and that all the charges over Blackman and Ridgway
should be rejected. The defense did not basically counter the charges involving
the eight other victims.
The high court panel acted on appeals both from prosecutors and the defendant.
Blackman was working as a hostess in a Tokyo bar when she went missing in July
2000. Her dismembered body was found in February 2001 at a cave in Miura, also
in Kanagawa Prefecture.
Obara was first arrested in October 2000 on suspicion of raping a Canadian woman.
==Kyodo