JAPAN/FILE: Family of slain Briton offers flowers at murder site ahead of court verdict

The family of a British woman, who was murdered in what is called one of Japan's worst sex crimes, on Monday (April 23) visited the site where pieces of her chopped body were found six years ago. Lucie Blackman's father, sister and other family members shared memories of her and offered flowers inside a beachside cave where police found Blackman's remains -- dismembered and encased in concrete - in February 2001. "We feel not so connected here now. It doesn't feel so much as if Lucie was here or her spirit is here so much and it feels much more of a sad place without Lucie's spirit because Lucie was very happy, and Lucie was very vibrant. But it's important to come here today really for the final, final time," said Lucie's father, Tim Blackman. The family's visit comes a day before a Japanese court is set to hand out the verdict for her killer, 54-year-old businessman Joji Obara. Obara is charged with serial rape and killing two foreign women, including Blackman, who was then 22-years-old and working at a Tokyo night club. He is charged with a total of 10 cases of rape, including drugging, raping and killing Blackman. Obara has denied all the charges, while prosecutors are demanding a life sentence, the heaviest sentence for rape resulting in death. The Tuesday verdict comes less than a month after another young British woman, Lindsay Ann Hawker, was found dead in a bathtub filled with sand near Tokyo, leading to intensive coverage by the Japanese media and prompting comparisons with Blackman's case. Blackman, from Kent in southeast England, was working in Tokyo's Roppongi nightlife district, when she went missing on July 1, 2000, after saying she was going for a drive with a man. Prosecutors have said Obara took her to his beach-front condominium just southwest of Tokyo that day and made her drinks, laced with sleeping pills and other drugs, before raping her. The beachside cave where police found her remains was just 250 metres away from Obara's condominium.

ITN Source | April 23, 2007

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