JAPAN: US citizen faces Japanese court over sexual assault of friend of strangled Irish student

Record ID: 466856

  • Title: JAPAN: US citizen faces Japanese court over sexual assault of friend of strangled Irish student
  • Date: 10th January 2013
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE - JULY 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF KEIO PLAZA HOTEL WHERE IRISH EXCHANGE STUDENT NICOLA FURLONG WAS FOUND DEAD EARLY ON MAY 24, 2012
  • Embargoed: 25th January 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5ROPOR7XGEGC62W48UL6ZPFGC
  • Story Text: A U.S. citizen charged with the sexual assault of a friend of strangled Irish student Nicola Furlong faced Japanese prosecutors on Thursday (January 10).
    The trial of 23-year-old James Blackston is expected to shed light on the events leading up to Furlong's death in a Tokyo hotel room in May 2012.
    Blackston's friend and fellow countryman, Richard Hinds, is due to stand trial for Furlong's murder in March.
    Prosecutors allege the pair gave Furlong and her friend, another Irish woman whose name had been withheld by the courts, drugs that left them incapacitated.
    Blackston is accused of sexually assaulting the Irish woman in a taxi and later at the upmarket Keio Plaza hotel in central Tokyo. Investigators believe Hinds was strangling Furlong in a nearby hotel room at the same time.
    The prosecution case revolves around video camera footage from a taxi the four took en route to the hotel.
    Investigators say footage shows Blackston and Hinds talking about giving the women date-rape drugs.
    But on Thursday, Blackston's lawyer Tsutomu Nakamura said prosecutors had little proof.
    "The prosecutor accused Blackston of discussing with his friend about giving the girls some sort of date rape drug, but from the video camera footage there's nothing that proves that," Nakamura said.
    "The conversation (in the taxi) was hard to understand, so I think it was a hearing mistake on the part of the investigators," he added.
    A verdict on the case is expected some time in March, after Tokyo District Court convenes again next month.
    Furlong, who was 21-years-old when she was found dead on May 24, had been on an exchange programme to Japan from Dublin City University.
    The trial for her murder is due to start on March 4.
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