Prosecutors in the case of Richard Hinds, who is standing trial for the murder of Irish student Nicola Furlong, have demanded the maximum punishment permissible for a man who had shown “no remorse” and “huge disrespect” towards the victim and her family.

The close friend of Nicola Furlong who was with her on the night of her death broke down in tears as she told a Tokyo court she believed drinks spiked with drugs were the reason the two of them blacked out after drinking with the man accused of strangling Ms Furlong and another man standing trial for assaulting the unidentified Irishwoman last May.

A key witness in the trial against the man accused of killing Nicola Furlong in Tokyo yesterday said postmortems confirmed the Co Wexford student had been strangled.

The family of Nicola Furlong came face to face with the student’s alleged killer for the first time yesterday, when the trial of the American musician Richard Hinds began in Tokyo.