Tatsuya Ichihashi has been jailed for life for the rape and murder of British teacher Lindsay Hawker.
The 32-year-old Japanese man admitted raping and strangling the 22-year-old English language teacher, but he said he didn't mean to kill her.
Miss Hawker was found dead by police in Ichihashi's apartment in Ichikawa City, east of Tokyo, on March 2007: her naked body had been buried in a sand-filled bathtub on the flat's balcony.
Ichihashi went on the run, undergoing plastic surgery to alter his appearance.
He was arrested at a ferry terminal in Okaka in western Japan on November 2009.
Since then, he has published a book, confessing to the killing. He promised to donate all proceeds from the sales of the book to Miss Hawker's family.
Present at the murder trial at Chiba District Court were Miss Hawker's parents Bill and Julia and her sisters Lisa and Louise.
Before the sentence was read out, Mr Hawker had told reporters: "We expect to get the judgment we are hoping for."
Mr Hawker had said that he hoped Ichihashi be given the harshest punishment possible – which could have been death by hanging.
But prosecutors asked for him to be jailed for life instead.
