A Japanese man who cut his face with knives and scissors to change his appearance after allegedly raping and murdering a British teacher says he is "really, really sorry".
Tatsuya Ichihashi, 32, was arrested in 2009 after a manhunt following the 2007 death of 22-year-old Lindsay Ann Hawker.
Her body was found beaten, naked and bound at the wrists and ankles with plastic cord in a sand-filled bathtub in his apartment.
Changed his face ... Tatsuya Ichihashi, before, left, and after, right, he changed his face. Photo: AP
At the start of his trial in Tokyo's Chiba District Court yesterday, he admitted killing Miss Hawker, his English teacher, but said: "I had no intention of murder.
"I'm the one who scared her and left her dead. I'm really, really sorry," Agence France-Presse reported him as saying, quoting Jiji Press.
Wearing black jeans and a black shirt, Mr Ichihashi knelt on the floor and bowed twice to Miss Hawker's family, who travelled to Japan to witness the trial, public broadcaster NHK said.
Killed ... Lindsay Hawker. Photo: AFP/ Jiji Press
But he would not describe how he allegedly killed Miss Hawker, only saying: "During the trial, I will speak about what happened.
"What happened that day, only I and Miss Lindsay know," London's Daily Telegraph reported him as saying. "But because of my actions, she is no longer able to speak ever again."
An autopsy showed Miss Hawker died of suffocation.
Bill Hawker holds a picture of his daughter Lindsay after arriving at court. Photo: Reuters
Mr Ichihashi wrote about Miss Hawker's death in a book, Until the Arrest, while he was in prison.
In it, he described how he travelled across Japan, trying to change his looks to evade capture by police through removing two moles from his face with a knife, cutting off part of his lower lip with scissors to make it thinner and sewing his nose with a needle and thread to change its shape, the Telegraph reported.
He also underwent extensive plastic surgery at various clinics, paying for the operations by working for an Osaka construction company, The Guardian said.
The family of slain British teacher Lindsay Hawker ... from left to right, mother Julia, father Bill, and sisters Lisa and Louise. Photo: AFP
Mr Ichihashi, the son of a surgeon and a dentist, was an excellent athlete and horticulture student who kept to himself, his friends told the Telegraph.
His neighbours added that he was not a trouble-maker.
But when police raided his apartment following the discovery of Miss Hawker's body, they found graphic cartoon depictions of sex and violence, the paper said.
Miss Hawker, a Leeds University biology graduate, became a teacher at a language school after arriving in Japan in 2006 - the same school at which Mr Ichihashi was a student.
Investigators said he became instantly obsessed with Miss Hawker and persuaded her to give him English lessons after chatting to her outside a Chiba train station.
Just before her death, Miss Hawker gave Mr Ichihashi a private lesson at a cafe before they both returned to his apartment nearby.
Her parents, Bill and Julia, and sister Lisa, arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for the trial.
Mrs Hawker cried in the courtroom when she saw a picture of her daughter's body, AFP reported.
Mr Hawker said: "We're a strong family and we're going to see this through to the end. All we want is justice for Lindsay."
- with AFP
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