The father of a British bar hostess who was raped and dismembered in Japan in 2000 warned yesterday that conditions persist for similar crimes to occur again, and demanded the maximum penalty for his daughter's alleged killer.
Tim Blackman, the father of Lucie Blackman, denounced accused murderer Joji Obara as a "disgusting creature" and "filthy animal" and said the "world" was demanding the "longest possible sentence."
The crime was especially egregious because of the lasting trauma to Lucie's brother and sister, the elder Blackman said in Tokyo after testifying at Obara's trial.
Her brother Rupert has failed years at university due to illness and "requires constant medication" to stabilize his ravaged emotions. Lucie's grief-stricken sister Sophie tried to commit suicide and is now committed to a psychiatric hospital, Blackman said.
"I and my children have been sentenced to a lifetime of grief and sorrow by these actions, have already served six years in this nightmare, and will only receive relief when death comes," Blackman said after testifying at Obara's trial.
Obara, a real estate developer, has been on trial on charges of rape resulting in death in Blackman's killing. Prosecutors say that he gave Blackman a fatal drug overdose in June 2000 before dismembering her body.
He also faces charges of fatally drugging and raping Carita Ridgway, an Australian woman who died in 1992, and is suspected in a string of other rapes. Obara has pleaded innocent to all the charges.
Blackman was working at a Tokyo night club when she disappeared, and had told a friend she was going on a drive to the ocean with a customer.
Blackman's father said yesterday that other women in Japan's night club scene are vulnerable to similar crimes or exploitation because the justice system does not provide a way for them to work legally on a short-term basis.
Many foreign women come to Japan hoping to make money as bar hostesses, but must work under-the-table on tourist visas without legal protections. Blackman, a former flight attendant, came to Japan in May 2000 and used her earnings to travel around Asia.
"Because they are working illegally, they have no recourse to any legal help," Blackman's father said. "The situation exists, I think, for these things to occur again."
His testimony also backed that of Blackman's mother, who said last week that Obama's lawyers attempted to pay the victim's family a large sum of money. He put the figure at £500,000 (US$891,000) and said it was meant to keep them "away from the court."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion