Cops say man acquitted of Blackman murder won't dodge the bullet a second time

[Anchorman]

Joji Obara may have got away without being convicted for the horrible death of Briton Lucie Blackman when his verdict was handed down this month, but a police officer involved in the case tells Shukan Asahi (5/18) there's no hope he'll avoid responsibility following prosecutors' appeal.

The Tokyo District Court found Obara, 54, a real estate developer, guilty of a series of date rapes, one of which lead to death of an Australian woman, that had been committed between 1992 and 2000.

But the court declared him to be not guilty of the highest-profile charges of all - those related to Blackman.

The verdict was surprising, given the justice system's propensity to toe the line, but not one totally unexpected, it seems.

"I was drinking with some of my mates from the case and they were incredibly calm about the verdict. Obara had continuously denied the charges and some cops even said before the ruling that he was going to get off. I'd heard the judge in the case has a sibling who's a prosecutor, so I thought a guilty verdict was a given," an officer involved in the investigation into Blackman's death tells Shukan Asahi. "I watched the whole court case as it unfolded. I didn't think the judge would be the type to hand down a ruling like that."

In the Blackman case, Obara was charged with luring Blackman to his Kanagawa Prefecture home in July 2000, then plying her with drugs that knocked her unconscious so he could rape her. Obara wasn't formally charged with killing Blackman, but he was indicted for illegally disposing her body, which was found mutilated and hidden in a cave near Obara's home. During the April 24 Tokyo District Court ruling in the case, the judge said Obara couldn't be found guilty because "there is no direct evidence and the exact cause of death has not been determined."

The officer who worked on the case was furious with the Obara verdict.

"The investigation was perfect and testimony in court could hardly have gone any better. I suppose the judge found it hard to get a glimpse of the whole picture. Unless you could imagine what Obara's typical movements were, how his crimes were habitual and what type of person he is, there would have to be a tendency to say that the evidence was all circumstantial and not enough to convict," the cop says. "Still, life imprisonment is life imprisonment. And I guess the judge thought he'd done his job by handing down that term."

The court took some, well surprising steps in the ruling. A food deliveryman who testified seeing "a woman" in Obara's apartment on the weekend Blackman was there saw his statements ignored for being "too vague."

Still, the lack of material evidence did prove telling.

"We needed the chainsaw he used to cut up the body, but I'd say that was thrown into the ocean and we'll never find that," the cop tells Shukan Asahi. "There won't be another investigation. But I'm still convinced, 100 percent, that we'll get a guilty verdict in the Lucie case, too." (By Ryann Connell)