Accused ‘deserves death penalty for killing Nicola’

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 19-year-old musician from Memphis, Tennessee, “deserved the death penalty or life imprisonment — the maximum permissible under Japanese law”, said head prosecutor Kenji Horikoshi.

However, since he was being tried as a juvenile, he should serve the severest sentence under Japanese juvenile law, which is between five and 10 years, Mr Horikoshi said. “There is no reason to demand less than this,” he added.

Speaking through his own lawyer, Yuichi Kawamoto, Ms Furlong’s father Andrew requested the “heaviest sentence that the law demands”.

“The suspect is considered a minor [under Japanese law], meaning there is a limit to the sentence that can be set,” read Mr Furlong’s statement, which was presented in Japanese. “But if you look at what happened, he deserves the heaviest sentence that an adult can get.”

During his closing arguments of an oft-times harrowing trial that started nine days ago, Mr Horikoshi said the defendant had “violated Nicola’s dignity, both through his testimony and his actions”.

Fibres on Nicola Furlong’s neck and expert forensic testimony showed that the defendant used some kind of weapon, such as a towel or tank top found on Mr Hinds’s bed, that had traces of the Irishwoman’s DNA, he added.

The DCU exchange student’s demise had been “the result of the suspect’s malicious intent and sexual desire”, Mr Horikoshi said.

In his closing remarks, chief defence attorney Kenji Hattori called the prosecution’s argument “sloppy”, claiming they had “failed to show any intent to kill” or motive by his client.

The defence also attempted to show their client as a decent person, who had been “a good Samaritan” for not leaving Ms Furlong and her unnamed college friend at the bar where they had been drinking.

The two women had been rendered unconscious from consuming too much alcohol and taking Ms Furlong’s anti-anxiety pills, Mr Hattori alleged, but despite their incapacitated condition Mr Hinds and his friend James Blackston had taken the two women back to the men’s hotel.

In a 10-minute statement during which he frequently flouted court protocol and directly addressed the family, Mr Hinds appealed to Nicola’s parents, Andrew and Angela, that he had “never had any intention to bring harm” to their daughter.

“Mrs Furlong, it truly saddens my heart when I look over and see you crying, and Mr Furlong it pains me when I see your face red with frustration,” he said. “So this is why I look you dead in your eyes today and tell you that your daughter did not suffer.”

At one point, Ms Furlong shook her head in apparent disbelief when the defendant said he did not look on the Furlong family as his “accusers or enemies, but as my family and friends”.

“It makes my heart happy that you believe in the same God as I do,” he said.

He also told the family that he believed Nicola Furlong was “a nice woman”, despite previously portraying the Wexford woman as someone who allegedly had demanded rough sex and had cried out in anger when the American had refused to have sexual intercourse with her.

Mr Hinds’s mother Vivian, his pastor Perry Maples, and other friends who had travelled over from the US could be seen wiping away tears as he said: “You might ask why if everyone can talk so well about [me], why [am I] the one who is in this situation. That’s just because I am not perfect.”

The defendant, who had shown little emotion until yesterday, ended his address by making a tearful appeal to the jury, which is made up of three professional judges and six lay jurors. “You are not looking at a professional strangler, a murderer, or a pervert, he said. “But I do feel deep remorse for [Ms Furlong’s] family.”

Verdict and sentencing will be made on Mar 19.