The family of an Australian woman who was murdered in Japan is calling for an independent inquiry into the death of a Briton who also worked as a hostess.
In one of Japan's most horrendous sex crime cases, Joji Obara was sentenced to life in jail on Tuesday for raping eight women and for drugging, raping and slaying Carita Ridgway, a 21-year-old Australian hostess who died in hospital in 1992.
But the Tokyo District Court found the 54-year-old property developer not guilty of similar charges regarding British bar hostess Lucie Blackman.
It was not until police investigated Blackman's death that they found that Ridgway's death from liver failure in 1992 was due to her being drugged with chloroform by Obara, who then filmed himself raping the senseless woman.
"Carita's family feel a deep sense of anger, betrayal and disappointment in relation to the 1992 police investigation into Carita's death," Ridgway's mother Annette Foster said after the verdict.
"The fact that Obara went on to continue committing crimes for the next eight years forced on Carita's family great stress, particularly in respect to Lucie Blackman.
"Carita's family respectfully request the Japanese government to set up an independent inquiry into the 1992 police investigation of Carita's death," she said.
Blackman's case attracted huge attention abroad and highlighted the dangers faced by women working in hostess clubs, where men pay huge sums to drink and chat with female companions.
Tuesday's verdict stunned Blackman's family, and her father said he would urge prosecutors to appeal against the verdict, which they can do under Japanese law.
"He was sentenced to life in prison, but the court failed to find him guilty on the charges concerning Lucie, which were the core of their case."
A spokeswoman for the Tokyo prosecutors' office declined to comment on a possible appeal, which legal experts said would have to be lodged within 14 days of the verdict.
Some Japanese media have criticised police and prosecutors for a sloppy investigation and noted that a man suspected of killing Briton Lindsay Hawker in March was still on the run. The man fled the apartment near Tokyo where police found the 22-year-old English teacher's body in a sand-filled bathtub.
"It would not be an exaggeration to say that the true worth of Japan's police is being called into question," said an editorial in the conservative Sankei newspaper.
Legal experts, however, faulted a legal system that has long relied on confessions by defendants or testimony of accomplices and eyewitnesses to prove guilt in criminal cases.
"In Japan, the requirements for proof are very strict so the verdict was not so unexpected," said Hiroshi Itakura, a criminal law professor at Nihon University's Law School.
Experts said it could take another 18 months or so before a final verdict was reached if the case went to the Supreme Court after passing through the Tokyo High Court.
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