TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese businessman was sentenced to life in jail Tuesday for a wave of brutal assaults on women but cleared on the most high-profile count -- the killing of British bar hostess Lucie Blackman.
Joji Obara, a 54-year-old former property developer, had been on trial since 2000 on charges that he preyed on young Western women working in Tokyo's seedy nightlife district of Roppongi.
Although the Blackman case was the most prominent, Obara was accused of a total of 10 counts of rape, two of which led to death -- of Blackman, 21, and Australian Carita Ridgeway.
Tokyo District Court sentenced him to life for most of the assaults but he was acquitted of all charges related to Blackman's death.
"There is nothing to prove that he was involved in the rape and her death. The court cannot prove he was single-handedly involved in her death," Judge Tsutomu Tochigi said.
"What is clear is that the victim acted together with the accused and then vanished and, following that, she was found dead."
Wearing a black jacket and glasses with his hair greying and thinning, Obara looked ahead attentively and occasionally nodded as the verdict was read.
Blackman's father Tim was also in court.
His daughter's disappearance raised a storm of media coverage in Britain and even a personal appeal by Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Obara, who argued that he did not intend to kill any women, was charged with abduction, assaults resulting in death, mutilation and abandonment of a corpse but not actual murder, meaning he was not eligible for the death penalty.