Across Asia: Japan

New charges filed

Japanese police added fresh charges of rape and murder yesterday against the suspect in the slaying of a British language teacher whose body was found in a sand-filled bathtub more than two years ago, officials said.

Lindsay Ann Hawker, 22, was found dead in March 2007 on the balcony of an apartment in Chiba, east of Tokyo. She was an English teacher at a private language school and the apartment belonged to one of her students, Tatsuya Ichihashi. Police arrested Ichihashi, 30, last month, initially on suspicion of abandonment of a body.