A Japanese murder suspect who spent two years and seven months on the run and who altered his appearance through cosmetic surgery was arrested Tuesday in connection with the 2007 slaying of a British woman after his identity was confirmed by fingerprints. Police said they formally arrested Tatsuya Ichihashi, 30, after seizing him in Suminoe Ward, Osaka, in the evening and taking him into custody. He had been wanted on a technical charge of abandoning the body of language school teacher Lindsay Hawker, who was 22 at the time of her death, at his apartment in Chiba Prefecture.

Osaka police received a call from an employee of a ferry operator at 6:44 p.m. saying there was a man resembling the person depicted in a wanted poster sitting on a bench on the second floor of a ferry terminal where boats depart for the southern island of Okinawa.

Police officers went to the scene about four hours before the ferry left the port and took the man to Suminoe Police Station, where he identified himself as Ichihashi. The police arrested him after a fingerprint check confirmed his identity.