(Repeats to additional subscribers, amends slug)

(Adds Blackman's father)

By George Nishiyama

TOKYO, April 24 (Reuters) - A Japanese businessman was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for serial rape and killing an Australian woman, but was cleared of killing British bar hostess Lucie Blackman in one of Japan's worst sex crime cases.

Blackman's disappearance and death seven years ago attracted huge attention due to her family's campaign to find her, and because of the gravity of the charges.

One-time property developer Joji Obara, 54, had been charged with 10 cases of rape, including drugging, raping and killing Blackman. The 21-year-old former British Airways flight attendant was working as a hostess in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district when she disappeared in July 2000.

"The court cannot prove that he single-handedly was involved in her death," Presiding Judge Tsutomu Tochigi told the Tokyo District Court.

"What is clear is that the victim was together with the accused and then vanished and next was found dead."

Blackman's mother, Jane Steare, said she was "absolutely heartbroken" after hearing the verdict. "My worst fears have come true," she said in a statement.

"As for my darling Lucie, I miss you so much. This aching void in my heart feels like it will never go away, but I truly believe that one day we will hug each other again," she added.

"Your mummy will never give up hope of finding justice and the truth."

Obara was found guilty of raping eight women, and of raping, drugging and causing the death of Carita Ridgway, a 21-year-old Australian hostess who died in hospital in 1992, the court said.

Ridgway's family said they were relieved that Obara was convicted for her death, but said they were disappointed Japanese police had not launched an investigation earlier.

"If Obara had been investigated in 1992, it would have stopped the crimes he committed for the next eight years," Ridgway's mother, Annette Foster, told a news conference.

Obara, wearing a dark grey suit and glasses and sporting a beard, repeatedly wiped his face with a small blue towel before the verdict was handed down, then sat and nodded occasionally as the judge read out the sentence.

Blackman's father, Tim Blackman, was also in the courtroom and watched silently.

Prosecutors had sought the life sentence, the heaviest possible punishment for rape resulting in death.

Obara denied all the charges. His lawyer, Yasuo Shionoya, said he would appeal.

MEMORIES REVIVED

The judge cited evidence including a diary kept by Obara, video tapes showing him raping women and writing in which he boasted, "My goal is to have sex with 500 women by the time I am 30".

Memories of the Blackman case were revived in March this year when Briton Lindsay Hawker, a 22-year-old English teacher from Brandon near Coventry, was found dead in a sand-filled bathtub in an apartment near Tokyo. Police are searching for Hawker's suspected killer, a 28-year-old Japanese man.

Blackman, of Kent, England, was working at a hostess bar, where men pay hundreds of dollars to drink and chat with the women.

She vanished on July 1, 2000, after saying she was going for a drive with a man. Prosecutors said Obara took her to his beachfront condominium near Tokyo that day and knocked her unconscious with drug-laced drinks before raping her.

Police found her remains -- including a severed head encased in concrete -- seven months later in a cave by the sea 250 metres from another condominium owned by Obara.

Last September, Tim Blackman accepted a 100 million yen ($840,000) "condolence payment" from a friend of Obara, saying he would donate much of it to a charity set up in Lucie's name.

On Tuesday, Lucie's mother criticised Tim Blackman for accepting "money paid on behalf of a convicted killer and rapist".

Tim Blackman criticised prosecutors for failing to secure a conviction in Lucie's case and said he would make a formal representation through the British Embassy urging the prosecution to appeal the verdict, which they are permitted to do under Japanese law.

Many foreign hostesses in Tokyo work illegally on tourist visas, making it difficult for them to report problems to police.

(Additional reporting by Teruaki Ueno and Isabel Reynolds)

($1=118.75 Yen)

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