The man accused of killing Irish exchange student Nicola Furlong in Japan has told a court in Tokyo that he had no reason or motive to kill her.

19-year-old American musician Richard Hinds, from Memphis, Tennessee, spoke briefly to the murder trial where he admitted strangling the 21-year-old but denied killing her intentionally.

The student from Curracloe in Co. Wexford was found unconscious in a hotel in the capital last May and later died. She had been out at a concert with a friend earlier that night.

The prosecution alleges Hinds took Nicola back to a city centre hotel with the intent to sexually assault her, and that during that assault he strangled her with a bath towel.

David McNeill is The Irish Times Correspondent in Tokyo.

He was in court and describes what happened in the opening day of the trial.