National News
Fugitive wanted over 2007 killing of British teacher arrested in Osaka
Police in Osaka say they have arrested the prime suspect in the 2007 killing of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker.
Tatsuya Ichihashi, 30, was arrested in Osaka's Suminoe Ward on Tuesday, on suspicion of abandoning Hawker's body. Police and other sources said investigators received a phone tip on Tuesday evening reporting a man resembling Ichihashi at a ferry terminal. Officers rushed to the scene and questioned the man, who reportedly admitted that he was Ichihashi.
Police later took the suspect to Suminoe Police Station in Osaka and confirmed him to be Ichihashi through his fingerprints. The 30-year-old reportedly had been headed for Naha in Okinawa Prefecture.
According to NHK television, the man who called police reported a suspicious-looking person wearing a cap, sunglasses and a mask.
In a telephone interview with broadcaster TBS on Tuesday evening, Hawker's father Bill Hawker said he was surprised at the news of Ichihashi's apprehension.
"My nightmare is finally over," Hawker said in the interview soon after the news broke.
"I'm now going to contact my wife and my two daughters to tell them this good news, and I very much look forward to seeing Ichihashi across a courtroom so I can look him in the face," Hawker said.
Ichihashi's father, meanwhile, said he was relieved to hear of Ichihashi's arrest, adding that his son would only have brought further disgrace on himself by continuing to flee. He said he wanted his son to make the facts of the case clear.
Ichihashi had been working as a builder at a construction company in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, until last month under the name Kosuke Inoue. His fingerprints were found in the company dorm where he'd been living for the last year or so.
The 30-year-old registered with an Internet cafe in Hakata Ward in Fukuoka in mid-October, using a known alias. Police added that he stayed only to sign up for a membership card. They added that there had been other sightings of him in the city.
Investigators said the fugitive received cosmetic surgery toward the end of October in Nagoya.
Ichihashi was placed on a police wanted list on March 27, 2007, on suspicion of abandoning the body of Hawker. The 22-year-old teacher's body was found on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, in March 2007.
Hawker had worked as a teacher at an English language school in Tokyo, but on March 26, 2007, a worker from her school phoned police, saying that attempts to contact her had been unsuccessful. Police found part of Ichihashi's name and his telephone number on a note in Hawker's apartment. They visited his apartment and were questioning him in front of his home at about 9:40 p.m. the same evening, when he fled barefoot. Police later found Hawker's body in a bathtub on Ichihashi's balcony, buried in sand with her knees bent.
An autopsy found that Hawker had been strangled with considerable force, and her face and limbs had been hit. After the killing, Hawker's family came to Japan several times, calling for information on the case.
In June this year police raised the reward for solid information on Ichihashi's whereabouts from 1 million yen to the upper limit of 10 million yen for the first time in Japan.
(Mainichi Japan) November 10, 2009
