RICHARD HINDS (19) has been found guilty of the murder of  Nicola Furlong in Tokyo last May.

He was given a sentence of a minimum of five years and a maximum of ten years with labour.

Chief judge Masaharu Ashizawa said this was the maximum sentence possible because Hinds was a minor under Japanese law.

He said Hinds’ testimony was “not credible” and had “tainted the honour of his victim”.

Judge Ashizawa said the court concluded he had strangled Ms Furlong using either a towel or a tank top, both of which had traces of her DNA.

He said the attack was “atrocious and vicious in nature”.

The 21-year-old Wexford woman from Curracloe was found dead in the KeioPlaza hotel in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district on May 24 last year.

Hinds, 19, from Tennessee in the US, had denied her murder.

He showed no emotion as the judge delivered the verdict, but briefly said goodbye to his family before he was led away.