HÀ NỘI – Japan’s police on Friday served a fresh arrest warrant on a man already detained in relation to the death of a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl in Chiba Prefecture in March.

The suspect was charged with murder in addition to abandoning the body of the victim, Japan’s Kyodo News reported.

On April 14, the suspect, Yasumasa Shibuya, 46, was detained on suspicion of abandoning the body of a girl, Lê Thị Nhật Linh, near a drainage ditch in Abiko, Chiba, according to the prefectural police.

Friday is the last day Shibuya can be held under court-mandated detention without being indicted for the alleged abandonment of the victim’s body, the initial charge against him when he was arrested last month.

According to Kyodo, the suspect is refusing to speak to investigators.

A DNA sample taken from the victim’s body matched that of Shibuya and hair found in the suspect’s car matched the victim’s DNA, the police said.

Shibuya was the head of the parents’ association at an elementary school in Matsudo which the victim was attending at the time of her disappearance. He lives some 300m from the victim’s home.

The girl is thought to have been choked to death, based on the marks found on her neck. On March 24, nine-year-old Linh went missing after she left home in Matsudo City for school, like usual.

Her body was found at 6.45am on March 26 in a field near a drainage ditch in Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, some 10km from her house.

A day later, her school bag was found in an area near the Tone River in Ibaraki Province, which is some 20km from Abiko.

Investigators said Linh’s belongings were found scattered in places which were even not accessed by locals.

Linh’s case has caused alarm and high dudgeon among the Japanese people. Many parents are concerned about the safety of their children, who often go to school on their own everyday. – VNS