There's a link between the arrest of habitual Filipina mutilator Hiroshi Nozaki and one of Japan's most notorious crimes ever -- the slaying of a Saitama Prefecture woman who was ignored by the cops when she complained about being stalked, according to Nikkan Gendai (4/10).

The link is Hiroshi Nishimura, who was head of the Saitama Prefectural Police in October 1999 when the stalker slaying occurred, and the now-62-year-old former top cop was lambasted by the public for his appalling mishandling of the case.

But at the same time, the same force that Nishimura headed had also arrested Nozaki for chopping up the body of another Filipina, but stuffed up that investigation so badly he was never charged with that woman's murder.

The stalker slaying created public outcry. A young woman filed a criminal complaint to the Saitama Prefectural Police's Ageo Police Station, saying that she was being stalked by a man threatening her with violence. Police did nothing about the case and the man she had been accusing stabbed her to death in broad daylight on the streets of Okegawa, Saitama Prefecture. Ageo cops later forged paperwork in an effort to appear a little less lax, but eventually several police were punished for their poor handling of the case, including Nishimura.

While all this was going on, Nishimura's cops had Nozaki in their custody.

"In September 1999, he was charged with embezzlement for not returning a car he had rented. During his trial in January 2000, he said that he had mutilated a Filipina's body in Soka, Saitama Prefecture, so he was arrested for mutilation of a corpse," a Saitama Prefectural Police insider tells Nikkan Gendai. "Just like this case, Nozaki cut up the body in an apartment and dumped the parts in a public toilet in a park. The Saitama police tried to pin a murder charge on Nozaki, but they couldn't find any evidence to pin him to the case and he refused to talk. He wasn't even charged for the murder."

Eventually, Nozaki was released from jail after serving just three years behind bars. He's back in confinement now, having been arrested Monday, accused of chopping up the body of 22-year-old nightclub hostess Honiefith Ratilla Kamiosawa.

Nishimura, meanwhile, quickly bounced back from his tumultuous time at the head of the Saitama Prefectural Police. He was eventually transferred to Kyushu before he retired in September 2003 and landed a cushy job as the president of a security company based in Fukuoka.

"It's the biggest security company in western Japan, with annual earnings of about 19 billion yen," the Saitama police insider says.

Considering he let Nozaki go, perhaps Nishimura would like to comment on the current case.

"I don't really know much about it," he tells the lowbrow afternoon tabloid in a statement released through his company.

Ironic, Nikkan Gendai muses, considering his reply when asked for a comment about the stalker slaying not long after it happened.

"We haven't got the investigation documents," Nikkan Gendai quotes Nishimura saying at the time, "So I don't really know much about it." (By Ryann Connell)