Tokyo prosecutors appeal over UK hostess killing

TOKYO, May 1 (Reuters) Tokyo prosecutors have appealed against last week's acquittal of the Japanese businessman accused of drugging, raping and killing British bar hostess Lucie Blackman nearly seven years ago.

The Tokyo prosecutors appealed to a higher court on Friday, asking for a retrial, a spokeswoman for the Tokyo District Court said today.

In one of Japan's worst sex crime cases, one-time property developer Joji Obara, 54, was sentenced to life in jail last Tuesday for raping eight women and drugging, raping and killing a 21-year-old Australian bar hostess, but he was cleared of similar charges in Blackman's case.

Presiding Judge Tsutomu Tochigi said at the time while it was clear that Blackman was together with Obara, then vanished and next was found dead, there was no proof that he ''single-handedly was involved in her death.'' Blackman's dismembered remains were found in a seaside cave near a condominium owned by Obara seven months after she vanished in July 2000.

A former British Airways flight attendant from Kent, England, she had been working at a hostess bar in Tokyo, where men pay hundreds of dollars to drink and chat with the women.

Prosecutors said Obara took her to his beachfront condominium near Tokyo and knocked her unconscious with drug-laced drinks before raping her. They had sought the life sentence, the heaviest possible punishment for rape resulting in death.

Obara has denied all the charges and is appealing against the ruling.

Memories of the Blackman case were revived in March when Briton Lindsay Hawker, a 22-year-old English teacher from Brandon near Coventry, was found dead in a sand-filled bathtub in an apartment near Tokyo. Police have yet to capture Hawker's suspected killer, a 28-year-old Japanese man.

REUTERS RJ BD1111