TOKYO, April 24 (Reuters) - A former Japanese businessman was found not guilty of raping and causing the death of Briton Lucie Blackman in 2000, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday, although he was sentenced to life in prison for a series of other crimes.

The Tokyo District Court said earlier that former real estate developer Joji Obara, 54 -- who was charged with a total of 10 cases of rape, including drugging, raping and causing Blackman's death -- had been sentenced to life in prison in a case that experts had called Japan's worst sex crime ever.

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