TOKYO, April 24 (Reuters) - A former Japanese businessman charged with serial rape and killing two foreign women, including Briton Lucie Blackman in 2000, was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison, a Tokyo court said, in a case described by experts as Japan's worst sex crime ever.

Former real estate developer Joji Obara, 54, was charged with a total of 10 cases of rape, including drugging, raping and killing Blackman, a 21-year-old former British Airways flight attendant who was working as a hostess in Tokyo when she disappeared.

Obara was also indicted on similar charges in the death of an Australian woman in 1992, and has been charged for drugging and raping eight other women.

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