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[king kakipi]

http://au.news.yahoo.com//041203/2/s0fj.html
Friday December 3, 09:58 PM


Japanese tourist charged with murder
A Japanese tourist has been charged with murder over the stabbing death of an Australian man at a Sydney backpackers hostel.

The 24-year-old victim from Kempsey, in northern NSW, was attacked with a steak knife in the lounge room of the Avalon Beach Hostel in the early hours of the morning and suffered multiple stab wounds to his head, chest and neck, police said.

He died at the scene.

The hostel's night manager also sustained minor injuries to his arm.

Police said the 27-year-old Japanese national had been charged with murder and would appear in Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday.

Police interviewed 37 witnesses, three of whom actually saw the attack take place.

Northern beaches detectives, the homicide squad and forensic services were investigating but police did not yet know what sparked the attack.

"We haven't identified a motive at this stage," Detective Inspector David Cochrane said.

The dead man's name and details were not released because some of his relatives had not been informed.

Police said they did not know how long the victim had been staying at the hostel, or whether he knew his attacker, but they were aware he had been travelling around Australia for the past few months.

The Japanese man arrived at the hostel in the past week after travelling down the NSW coast with a Japanese group from Byron Bay, Det Insp Cochrane said.

"I have scant information ... the only information about knowledge between the two parties is that they both resided at the backpackers hostel," Det Insp Cochrane said.

One passer-by, Avalon resident Brian Levings, said the hostel had a "migratory population" as backpackers, many of them from overseas, stayed for short periods and moved on.

Mr Levings said the hostel was not known for problems in the past.

"It's pretty good," he said.

"It's always well booked up ... it's a fairly high standard and has a good reputation.

"I don't think they've had any trouble here before but inevitably you're going to have trouble when you've got a migratory population."

[David W]

Edited after a change of title
Points well made below KK

[king kakipi]

Certainly not trying to score points David, I assure you. Sorry if you took it that way. Certainly a tragedy - not arguing about that. You missed my point (probably because I didn't include it!, my error ).......this story will get scant recognition in the various media here in Japan; had an Aussie stabbed a Japanese to death in Japan, that story would have ousted other important stories here ('Jenkins-san completes gruelling 25- day sentence', 'Winter Sonata star gets off a plane IN JAPAN', etc)

This story sets to redress, in a tiny way, the imbalance that they media displays in reporting serious crime here; if it involves those 'bad gaijin' it gets far more attention than if it involves native Japanese. I have private students that tell me "be careful if you sleep on the train, Chinese people steal your money" and "Americans are bad people, because when they get into a fight with the Japanese they hit them too hard". These are people who pay me for my time (sorry David ), seem intelligent and well-travelled, and yet still tell me, (unprompted, I assure you), the 'bad gaijin' stories. The xenophobia is everywhere; and the media (Japanese) does far more to stir up trouble than my post (which, is not designed to stir up trouble at all). Even when British people are murdered in Australia, the gutter tabloids in the UK don't feast on 'all Aussies are bad' stories, and, hey, those tabloids are already the lowest of the low!!

My 'FYI Gov Ishihara' was to get people to look at the story; I have edited the post only in regard to the title (now an eyecatching 'FYI'). If people misunderstand my point I am sorry. If the Mods deem it inappropriate they can remove it and I bow to their wisdom and sensitivity

[PAULH]

As a footnote

4 Japanese students have just been sent to jail in New Zealand for beating to death a fellow Japanese students in Auckland. 5 others were acquitted for the crime. The pathologist said he received a fat embolism, or fat got into the bloodstream, only possible after a severe and brutal beating. Im sure we won't hear anything about it from Ishihara though.

[Mike L.]

Yeah where's the media coverage of Japanese criminals abroad?

[shmooj]

I saw Yoko Ono made the news abroad recently...