Japanese court acquits Joji Obara in murder of Lucie Blackman, but gives him life sentence for other crimes…
The trial of Lucie Blackman’s murderer is over. Wait, nevermind, according to the court decision, it apparently cannot be proven that Obara murdered her:
A Tokyo court acquitted a Japanese real estate developer in the death of a British bar hostess Tuesday, but convicted him in a series of rapes and sentenced him to life in prison, a court official said.
Joji Obara, 54, was arrested in 2001 on charges of rape resulting in the death of the Briton, Lucie Blackman. He was also on trial over nine other rapes, including that of an Australian woman who died after a 1992 attack.
[...]
Obara was never charged with murder in Blackman’s death but instead faced a lesser charge of “rape leading to death.”
Blackman was working at a Tokyo night club in 2000 when she disappeared after telling a friend she was leaving with a customer. Her dismembered body was discovered in a seaside cave in early 2001 near a beachside condominium belonging to Obara.
From Richard Lloyd Parry’s article on the ruling:
The judge said that the 1,600 days served during the trial would be deducted from Obara sentence. Prisoners serving life sentences in Japan are eligible for parole after ten years and rarely remain in prison for the rest of their lives.
I don’t really know much about the details of this court case, but was there a lack of evidence supporting the theory that Joji Obara killed her? Could the fact that Blackman’s father accepted £450,000 of “blood money” as a gift from one of Obara’s friends influenced this decision? Is this a failure of the justice system?
[P.S. Just an advance warning: I know that Joji Obara's original name was Kim Sung Jong, and I don't think it really matters. I'd like the comments section of this post to not be full of anti-Korean comments. ]
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I don’t exactly understand what “rape leading to death” means. So that guy F’s someone till they die?! Either he killed Lucie Blackman or he didn’t. It’s clear he killed her WTH are the courts thinking?! At least they need to cut his ding dong off so he can’t do anything after he gets paroled (in ten years).
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Basically it is the distinction between the death caused intentionally and accidentally. So if you rape somebody, but you have no intention to kill her, ;however, as a result of your rape, if she dies, it it the rape leading to the death. The penalty is supposed to be heavier than rape but less heavy than intentional killing.
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You got this up quickly, nice work. I bet Parry’s piece has been ready to go for some time.
The time lapse between the killing and the discovery of the body led to the destruction/decay of relevant physical evidence. There is a ton of circumstantial evidence in this case, but no smoking gun. Obara never confessed and plead not guilty, having known that the cops screwed the whole thing up from the beginning. Without a confession, the prosecutors don’t have much to go on.
Thankfully they got him on other charges and he received the sentence he deserves. Thankfully the police did not botch this part of the investigation and seize his videos and diaries without proper warrants, or else he would be walking free today.
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If he is Japanese, it’s OK to be full of anti-Japanese?
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It really depends. If you want to make well reasoned arguments about problems Japan has without over generalizing or condemning the Japanese, go ahead.
I just don’t want this comment thread to become about Zainichi Korean crime in Japan. I’d rather not waste my time deleting off-topic rants about how Koreans are committing most of the crimes in Japan, as I had to do with the Hawker murder post’s comment section.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20070424it02.htm
headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070422-00000017-san-soci
According to Yomiuri and Sankei , there is no direct evidence for Lucy’s case.
Obara admitted that he was with Lucy just before the incident.
The dead body was found to be cut up , buried with cement.
Obara bought a chainsaw and cement just after the incident..
On the other hand,
In other 9 cases, there were video tapes Obara shot his crimes.
In other 9 cases, he raped women by making the women sleep with a drug.
In case of Lucy, there was no video tape, there was no drug detected from the dead body.
The court judgment;
it is evident that Obara was involved with damaging the dead body of Lucy in some way , but it is not clear that he did it by himself, nor is it clear how he was involved. Hence there is no direct evidence for Lucy’s case including the rape leading to the death.
Is this local court?
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Isn’t that involuntary manslaughter (due to criminal negligence)? Or is that what they are trying to say with the outcome being “rape leading to the death”. Either way they should chop off his hoo ha because he’s a serial rapist. Just because he rapes people in the (水商売) mizushobai world it doesn’t give him any right to treat women like garbage.
Hmm, perhaps he took a video but decided to destroy the evidence of his murder? Which answers why there were no video tape of Lucie. Hard to believe that they couldn’t find any blood samples on obara. He must’ve been thorough enough to erase most of the evidence (and the police screwed up the rest of the evidence).
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I feel very sorry for Blackman’s family.
Sad and terrible how money and yakuza connections skew justice — with his time already served, Obara can be released in just three years, and nobody will recognize him as the media have only used photos that are 30 years old.
As for the “lack of evidence” that is an absurd suggestion when one compares the case of (or in .
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So the Blackman family got 450,000 pounds, and possibly agreed behind the scenes to a lesser sentence. How is this a perversion of justice? One assumes that the purpose of justice is to bring justice to those that were wronged – or in this case, their nearest-and-dearest. If they are happy with the large chunk of change, then who are we to claim unfairness? Unfair to criminals who cannot afford such large bribes, perhaps. Personally I’d probably take the money as well – having him behind bars wouldn’t gain me anything material….
Unless of course it was ONLY her father that got the money and he isn’t sharing with anyone (assuming there is anyone)….
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From the beginning, the prosecutor has sought life imprisonment, which is the second highest penalty in the Japanese criminal law, for Obara. And he received it without leniency/情状酌量 from the judge. He won’t get the death penalty even if his guilty in the Blackman case is proved.
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there’s also the matter of public safety, if he’s raped like 10 people i doubt he’ll stop especially if he only has to occasionally pay some money
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The verdict was (sadly) predictable. There is nothing in the Japanese system of justice one could intelligently call ‘modern’; and I know after years of extensive research and writing on the subject.
I predicted the outcome of this farce several years ago and received (not a few) harsh comments about it; how, for example, the Blackmans will never receive fair justice. Today I can confidently sit here and say I was right.
As far as the criminal justice system in Japan is concerned, its just another ‘gaijin death’ they don’t want to deal with. The whole things pathetic.
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Do you have a link to your paper on the subject? Or the title of the article and the book?
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The verdict was (sadly) predictable. There is nothing in the Japanese system of justice one could intelligently call -modern-. And I know after years of extensive research and writing on the subject.
I predicted the outcome of this farce several years ago and received (not a few) harsh comments about it- how, for example, the Blackmans will never receive fair justice. Today I can confidently sit here and say I was right.
As far as the criminal justice system in Japan is concerned, its just another -gaijin death- they don’t want to deal with. The whole things pathetic.
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Lucy’s case was different as far as i know
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societies president extinctions running issue impact beginning
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