The father of an Irish student strangled by a US musician in Tokyo says he hopes the killer is haunted forever upon his expected release from prison over the weekend.
Richard Hinds was scheduled to walk free from Fuchu Prison in western Tokyo having served a maximum ten years for the murder of Nicola Furlong, from Curracloe, Co Wexford in May 2012.
Hinds, aged 19 at the time and tried as a minor under Japanese law, was handed a sentence of between five and ten years. He served a full term after reportedly showing no remorse for the killing, which he still denies.
Over the weekend, Nicola’s father Andrew posted pictures of a memorial garden called Cuan Aingeal (Angel Harbour) in Wexford, which he built in her honour, saying he took the photographs “for personal reasons as a certain gent is getting out of jail”.
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Mr Furlong said he hoped one of the photographs “haunts (Hinds) forever”.
It is reported Hinds is engaged to be married and will be deported from Japan, almost certainly back to the United States.
Speaking to the Sunday World, Mr Furlong said the fact Hinds, now aged 29, served the maximum sentence “says a lot”.
“It tells you he wasn’t exactly the best prisoner, doesn’t it?,” he said.
[ Hinds’s lurid defence failed to convince judges in Nicola Furlong murder caseOpens in new window ]
“If he had shown genuine sorrow for what he did to my daughter, he would have been let out earlier. For me, he should never again have been released.
“But it’s Japan, it’s their laws that are being applied and there is nothing I can do to stop this happening.”
Nicola, who attended Dublin City University and was studying in Tokyo as part of an exchange programme. She met Hinds and another American James Blackston after attending a Nicki Minaj concert with a friend in the city.
They went to a bar together. Nicola’s friend told the murder trial that she lost consciousness after drinking a shot given to her by Blackston.
The men then took the two unconscious women to a hotel, using wheelchairs to get them into their rooms. Hinds strangled Nicola in his room. Blackston was also jailed for sexually assaulting Nicola’s friend.