US Citizen Yevgeniy Bayraktar Facing 13 Years In Japan Prison For Murder

An American citizen was arrested in Japan last year after police found dismembered body parts of a missing Japanese woman, Saki Kondo.

The ruling for his trial was delivered on Jan. 22 after he pleaded guilty of dismembering her body in an attempt to cover up his crime. He was indicted of strangling Kondo to death at the condominuim in Osaka and dumping her corpse in several locations across Japan and was sentenced to thirteen years in jail.

Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar, a 27-year-old tourist from Long Island, New York admitted in court that he used a kitchen knife and a saw to cut up Kondo’s body after keeping her confined against her will. Police said that Bayraktar was persistent when he invited Kondo to meet him via social media and she kept refusing, but they believe in the end she reluctantly agreed to meet him in person.

Bayraktar met 27-year-old Saki Kondo who is from Sanda, Hyogo Prefecture in Japan on the dating app "Tinder" and was the last person seen with her. She was reported missing Feb. 16, 2018. There is survellience footage of Bayraktar and Kondo entering Osaka’s Higashinari Ward together. However, she was not seen in the subsequent footage where Bayraktar was seen repeatedly entering and leaving alone with a travel bag.

Police found the woman’s severed arms, legs and torso in the mountanious areas of Kyoto and Osaka two days after they discovered a human head which was suspected to be Kondo’s. The torso and a pair of soil covered arms were found in Shimamoto and the legs were found in Yamashina. None of the body parts bore any wounds except the severed cuts. Bayraktar took the police to all locations after they found the head in a suitcase at a short-term lodging facility in Osaka’s Nishinari Ward.

Initially when the body was discovered, police speculated that Kondo died some time around Feb. 16 last year and they believe she was murdered shortly after she entered the apartment with Bayraktar. He was taken into custody in Feb. 2018 on suspicion of confining her, mutilating and abandoning her body parts in the eary hours of Feb. 16 in the apartment that he had rented.

Bayraktar reportedly used public transportation such as trains to go to locations where he disposed the body parts.

He used a large amount of air freshener in the room but investigators found no traces of blood anywhere in the bathroom or elsewhere till they conducted a thorough drug test on the room. The test revealed traces of blood and locks of hair. DNA test results were not given out to the media. He also had reportedly taken several other women to the same condominium, all of whom have been confirmed safe.

During his trial at the Kobe District Court, prosecutors said Bayraktar’s acts were selfish and inhuman as he attempted to destroy evidence after deleting his Tinder profile, researching how to cut up a body and eventually buying tools he used to dismember Kondo’s body.

Since he admitted to inflicting inujuries that led to Kondo’s death and sawing up and dumping the body, his lawyer said five years in prison would be appropriate. However, on Jan. 15, the prosecutors did not indict him for the murder, saying it was unclear whether he had intent to commit murder.