Internet "crime mates" arrested after Japan killing

TOKYO, Aug 27 (Reuters) Three men who met on an Internet site that matches up criminals were arrested after battering a woman to death and abandoning her body in a forest, police and Japanese media said today.

The three arrested men swapped details on a ''crime mates'' site through their mobile phones, Kyodo news agency reported, and agreed to kidnap a 31-year-old office worker as she walked home late on Friday night.

They never told each other their names, and bashed the woman to death in a car park after she saw their faces, Kyodo said, adding the three robbed the woman of around 70,000 yen 601 dollars.

Nagoya police said they had arrested two unemployed men and a newspaper salesman and charged them with abandoning the body of the woman, who was later found partially buried in sand in the forest around 300 km west of Tokyo.

Japanese media said the three would later be charged with murder, but police declined to comment on any further charges.

The Internet-based plot was uncovered when one of the men turned himself in to police on Saturday, saying he was ''scared of capital punishment'', Kyodo said.

REUTERS RN RK1010