Ichihashi lawyers slam interrogation methods

CHIBA (Kyodo) Lawyers for Tatsuya Ichihashi urged prosecutors and police Thursday to improve their interrogation methods, arguing that a prosecutor had told the suspect during a grilling that he could be hanged for the 2007 murder of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker.

"It is illegitimate to investigate by making up scenarios," one of the lawyers told a news conference, during which they quoted Ichihashi as saying he was told by a prosecutor at the Chiba District Public Prosecutor's Office that the death sentence is a possibility.

The lawyers also said Ichihashi told them Chiba Prefectural Police investigators said he was causing trouble for his family by remaining silent.

Ichihashi on Thursday also denounced being administered nutritional supplements Monday because he felt sick afterward, the lawyers said.

Ichihashi has reportedly not tried to eat anything since his Nov. 10 arrest on the technical grounds of abandoning the body of Hawker, 22, in a sand-filled bathtub in his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, in March 2007.