[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009
Ichihashi confesses to Hawker's slaying
Suspect admits choking Briton but 'didn't intend' for her to die
Compiled from Kyodo, Staff report
CHIBA — Tatsuya Ichihashi has admitted choking Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker to death in 2007, one of his lawyers said Wednesday.
"She shouted, so I choked her by putting my arm around her neck from behind. I didn't intend to kill her," the lawyer quoted Ichihashi as saying.
Prosecutors filed rape and murder charges against Ichihashi, 30, the same day, in addition to the earlier charge of abandoning Hawker's corpse.
He faces a lay judge trial.
Ichihashi, who had remained silent about the case since his arrest last month, has begun to speak to investigators about the death of Hawker, 22, admitting the teacher from the now-defunct Nova language school chain died in his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, investigative sources said.
Soon after he was served an arrest warrant earlier this month for murder and rape, Ichihashi admitted he was with the victim in his flat on March 25 and 26, 2007, claiming they talked and watched a speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Internet, said the lawyer, who was not identified, quoting the accused as later explaining how he choked Hawker and said: "She was alive until dawn on the 26th. I had no intention of killing her and also tried artificial resuscitation."
Although Ichihashi has not directly voiced an apology to the slain English-language teacher's family, the lawyer said he has shown feelings of remorse and appears to have felt, while a fugitive, the weight of his actions.
Ichihashi was captured Nov. 10 in Osaka waiting to board an Okinawa-bound ferry, after 32 months on the run. He was initially arrested for abandoning Hawker's body.
On Dec. 2, he was indicted on that charge and was served with another arrest warrant on murder and rape. Police sent him to prosecutors Dec. 4.
Ichihashi fled officers who went to his apartment to question him about Hawker's disappearance. They subsequently found her naked body in a sand-filled bathtub on his balcony. While on the run, he had his face altered by plastic surgery.
Earlier reports, including those in tabloids, said Ichihashi was "treated like a VIP" immediately after his arrest — being served everything from sushi to fancy "bento" boxed meals — as investigators at Gyotoku Police Station in Chiba Prefecture tried to get him to eat in the hope he would spill his guts.
The Chiba police had no choice but to keep him in good health and get him to talk because they had already been a subject of ridicule for letting him flee barefoot after almost nabbing him at his apartment, a police source was quoted as telling a weekly magazine.
But Ichihashi adamantly refused for days to eat, to say nothing of opening up about Hawker's slaying. He's now in Chiba Prison, eating three square meals a day.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009
Role in '43 sinking 'unclear'
Japan awaits results of Aussie probe into Allied hospital ship's loss
SYDNEY (Kyodo) Japan believes the responsibility for torpedoing an Australian hospital ship during World War II is still unclear, The Australian newspaper reported Wednesday.
The Japanese Embassy in Canberra told the newspaper it is awaiting the outcome of an Australian investigation into the incident before accepting responsibility.
"The circumstances were not clear, given that it occurred during the Second World War," the embassy said in a statement. "We will see how the ongoing investigation by Australia unfolds."
The development comes just days after the AHS Centaur was discovered more than 2,000 meters below the surface off southeast Queensland.
According to Australian military history, the wartime hospital ship was traveling from Sydney when it was torpedoed by a Japanese I-177 submarine in the early hours of May 14, 1943.
Of the 332 medical staff and seamen onboard, only 64 survived.
The embassy also said Japan had earlier conducted an inquiry into the incident but would not elaborate on the findings.
Japan has long been criticized for specifically targeting a hospital ship in direct contravention of the Hague Convention on merchant vessels during war.
In the past there was speculation that the Japanese submarine sank the Centaur because it believed it was carrying military supplies to Australian troops in Papua New Guinea.
However, David Mearns, who led the search project to uncover the hospital ship, believes the claim is untrue.
"There has been absolutely no shred of any proof that munitions other than the guns that the ambulance drivers were entitled to carry were on board," The Australian quoted Mearns as saying.
The embassy emphasized that during World War II the two countries were adversaries, adding that relations now are on a strong footing.
"Japan, reflecting on the past, has since made the greatest efforts for world peace and prosperity as a responsible member of the international community and has also developed a close relationship with Australia," the embassy said.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it had accepted Japan's apologies for its wartime behavior and said the country is now a very different one that "contributes greatly to regional prosperity and security."
"The Japanese government has, on a regular basis, expressed its remorse for Japan's wartime actions — this includes current Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has done so since his election earlier this year," a spokesman told The Australian.
However, one of the survivors, Martin Pash, 87, told the Courier-Mail newspaper that he would like Japan to acknowledge that the Centaur should never have been torpedoed.
"It would be the decent thing to do," Pash said.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009
ISS arrivals add Christmas touch
MOSCOW (Kyodo) Soichi Noguchi and two other astronauts arrived Wednesday at the International Space Station to begin their five-month stay, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency officials said.
The three, who took off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz space capsule Monday, entered orbit before successfully docking with the station at 7:48 a.m. Wednesday, Japan time, the officials said.
Noguchi, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov and U.S. astronaut Timothy Creamer went aboard the ISS two hours later wearing Santa Claus hats and were met by two astronauts already on board, American Jeff Williams and Russian Maxim Suraev.
The five then held a video conference. Noguchi spoke with agency officials, and exchanged Christmas greetings with his wife and three daughters.
During his stay at the station scheduled to run until May, Noguchi, 44, will be involved in scientific studies making use of the space environment and will install the robotic arms on Japan's Kibo laboratory module.
He is expected to break the Japanese endurance record for a stay in orbit of 137 days, set by Koichi Wakata, 46, earlier this year.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009
Ichihashi confesses to Hawker's slaying
Suspect admits choking Briton but 'didn't intend' for her to die
Compiled from Kyodo, Staff report
CHIBA — Tatsuya Ichihashi has admitted choking Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker to death in 2007, one of his lawyers said Wednesday.
"She shouted, so I choked her by putting my arm around her neck from behind. I didn't intend to kill her," the lawyer quoted Ichihashi as saying.
Prosecutors filed rape and murder charges against Ichihashi, 30, the same day, in addition to the earlier charge of abandoning Hawker's corpse.
He faces a lay judge trial.
Ichihashi, who had remained silent about the case since his arrest last month, has begun to speak to investigators about the death of Hawker, 22, admitting the teacher from the now-defunct Nova language school chain died in his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, investigative sources said.
Soon after he was served an arrest warrant earlier this month for murder and rape, Ichihashi admitted he was with the victim in his flat on March 25 and 26, 2007, claiming they talked and watched a speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Internet, said the lawyer, who was not identified, quoting the accused as later explaining how he choked Hawker and said: "She was alive until dawn on the 26th. I had no intention of killing her and also tried artificial resuscitation."
Although Ichihashi has not directly voiced an apology to the slain English-language teacher's family, the lawyer said he has shown feelings of remorse and appears to have felt, while a fugitive, the weight of his actions.
Ichihashi was captured Nov. 10 in Osaka waiting to board an Okinawa-bound ferry, after 32 months on the run. He was initially arrested for abandoning Hawker's body.
On Dec. 2, he was indicted on that charge and was served with another arrest warrant on murder and rape. Police sent him to prosecutors Dec. 4.
Ichihashi fled officers who went to his apartment to question him about Hawker's disappearance. They subsequently found her naked body in a sand-filled bathtub on his balcony. While on the run, he had his face altered by plastic surgery.
Earlier reports, including those in tabloids, said Ichihashi was "treated like a VIP" immediately after his arrest — being served everything from sushi to fancy "bento" boxed meals — as investigators at Gyotoku Police Station in Chiba Prefecture tried to get him to eat in the hope he would spill his guts.
The Chiba police had no choice but to keep him in good health and get him to talk because they had already been a subject of ridicule for letting him flee barefoot after almost nabbing him at his apartment, a police source was quoted as telling a weekly magazine.
But Ichihashi adamantly refused for days to eat, to say nothing of opening up about Hawker's slaying. He's now in Chiba Prison, eating three square meals a day.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009
Role in '43 sinking 'unclear'
Japan awaits results of Aussie probe into Allied hospital ship's loss
SYDNEY (Kyodo) Japan believes the responsibility for torpedoing an Australian hospital ship during World War II is still unclear, The Australian newspaper reported Wednesday.
The Japanese Embassy in Canberra told the newspaper it is awaiting the outcome of an Australian investigation into the incident before accepting responsibility.
"The circumstances were not clear, given that it occurred during the Second World War," the embassy said in a statement. "We will see how the ongoing investigation by Australia unfolds."
The development comes just days after the AHS Centaur was discovered more than 2,000 meters below the surface off southeast Queensland.
According to Australian military history, the wartime hospital ship was traveling from Sydney when it was torpedoed by a Japanese I-177 submarine in the early hours of May 14, 1943.
Of the 332 medical staff and seamen onboard, only 64 survived.
The embassy also said Japan had earlier conducted an inquiry into the incident but would not elaborate on the findings.
Japan has long been criticized for specifically targeting a hospital ship in direct contravention of the Hague Convention on merchant vessels during war.
In the past there was speculation that the Japanese submarine sank the Centaur because it believed it was carrying military supplies to Australian troops in Papua New Guinea.
However, David Mearns, who led the search project to uncover the hospital ship, believes the claim is untrue.
"There has been absolutely no shred of any proof that munitions other than the guns that the ambulance drivers were entitled to carry were on board," The Australian quoted Mearns as saying.
The embassy emphasized that during World War II the two countries were adversaries, adding that relations now are on a strong footing.
"Japan, reflecting on the past, has since made the greatest efforts for world peace and prosperity as a responsible member of the international community and has also developed a close relationship with Australia," the embassy said.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it had accepted Japan's apologies for its wartime behavior and said the country is now a very different one that "contributes greatly to regional prosperity and security."
"The Japanese government has, on a regular basis, expressed its remorse for Japan's wartime actions — this includes current Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has done so since his election earlier this year," a spokesman told The Australian.
However, one of the survivors, Martin Pash, 87, told the Courier-Mail newspaper that he would like Japan to acknowledge that the Centaur should never have been torpedoed.
"It would be the decent thing to do," Pash said.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009
ISS arrivals add Christmas touch
MOSCOW (Kyodo) Soichi Noguchi and two other astronauts arrived Wednesday at the International Space Station to begin their five-month stay, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency officials said.
The three, who took off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz space capsule Monday, entered orbit before successfully docking with the station at 7:48 a.m. Wednesday, Japan time, the officials said.
Noguchi, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov and U.S. astronaut Timothy Creamer went aboard the ISS two hours later wearing Santa Claus hats and were met by two astronauts already on board, American Jeff Williams and Russian Maxim Suraev.
The five then held a video conference. Noguchi spoke with agency officials, and exchanged Christmas greetings with his wife and three daughters.
During his stay at the station scheduled to run until May, Noguchi, 44, will be involved in scientific studies making use of the space environment and will install the robotic arms on Japan's Kibo laboratory module.
He is expected to break the Japanese endurance record for a stay in orbit of 137 days, set by Koichi Wakata, 46, earlier this year.
