Lindsay Ann Hawker murder

Lindsay Ann Hawker murder: Tatsuya Ichihashi refusing to cooperate with police

Tatsuya Ichihashi, the Japanese man arrested in connection with the killing of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker, is refusing to cooperate with investigators.
Ichihashi, 30, was arrested in Osaka after being on the runsince March 2007, when the body of Ms Hawker was found covered in sand in a bath tub on the balcony of his Tokyo apartment.

After his arrest, as he waited to board a ferry to the remote southern islands of Okinawa, police quoted Ichihashi as telling them, "I have no excuses and I don't want to say anything."

Officers have been questioning him at Gyotoku Police Station.

Takeshi Ootani, a police spokesman, told The Daily Telegraph: "Two officers started the questioning this morning and we have spent all day interrogating him," he said. "We plan to continue into this evening as well.

"The suspect has refused to say anything to the officers but we will continue to question him," he said.

Ichihashi is being held on a technical charge of abandoning a body and can be held until November 22nd, according to Ootani. At that point, he is likely to be formally charged, enabling the police to keep him in custody and continue to interrogate him about Ms Hawker's death.

The maximum penalty for murder in Japan is the death sentence, which is carried out by hanging.

In Gifu, Ichihashi's home town in central Japan, his father said that he was "relieved" his son had been arrested.

In a message to his son in an interview on national broadcaster NHK, Masayoshi Ichihashi said, "You committed a crime. You must be brought to justice. I want you to atone for what you have done."

Ichihashi said he and his wife, Nobuko, had been praying for Ms Hawker every day since March 2007 and hoped his son would make amends for her death.

"You probably think my son is a monster, but for us, he isn't like that. He was a sweet boy.

"These have been painful days for us," he added. "I cannot bear the thought of him undergoing plastic surgery to try to get away with this crime.

"Running away must have added to the pain and sorrow of the family of Miss Lindsay, as it has to us," he said.

Further information has also emerged about Ichihashi's 32 months on the run from the authorities, including reports from former colleagues at the construction company where he worked for 13 months before his arrest that he was a loner, saved his money carefully and constantly wore a baseball cap and square-rimmed glasses.

He was also involved in a fight with another employee last summer.

A colleague intervened and later warned Ichihashi that could have killed the other man - at which point he reportedly broke down in tears.

Ichihashi earned around Y150,000 (£1,005) a month as a labourer and earned a reputation in the company as a diligent worker.

Police believe he saved his wages to pay for a series of plastic surgery procedures to radically alter his features and continue to evade police.

A search by police of his room in a company dormitory have revealed a number of mirrors, an English dictionary and a partly completed application form for a passport in the name of Kosuka Inoue.

Shortly before the release of a new photo of Ichihashi subsequent to his latest facial operation, he collected his pay from the construction site and disappeared. And despite a televised plea to hand himself in to authorities from his mother this week, police believe Ichihashi was planning to keep running.

A ticket officer at Osaka port contacted police on Tuesday evening to report that a man who may have been the suspect had purchsed a ticket for the 18-hour voyage to Okinawa. Wearing a baseball cap, dark-rimmed glasses and a flu mask, police approached Ichihashi shortly before 6 p.m. and questioned him for 10 minutes before he finally admitted, "I am Ichihashi."

News From: www.telegraph.co.uk