Popular Japanese cannibal — who killed, ate a student but never punished — dies at 73

Japanese murderer Issei Sagawa gained celebrity status after he walked free despite killing, raping and eating a fellow student in Paris in 1981

Issei Sagawa, a Japanese murderer known as the "Kobe Cannibal" who killed and ate a Dutch student but was never jailed, has died aged 73.

Sagawa died of pneumonia on November 24 and was given a funeral attended only by relatives, with no public ceremony planned, his younger brother and a friend said in a statement.

In 1981, Sagawa was studying in Paris when he invited Dutch student Renee Hartevelt to his home.

He shot her in the neck, raped her, and then consumed parts of her body over the course of several days.

Sagawa then attempted to dispose of her remains in the Bois de Boulogne park and was arrested several days later, confessing his crime to police.

But in 1983 he was deemed unfit for trial by French medical experts and was initially held in a psychiatric institution before being deported to Japan in 1984.

Hartevelt's family pledged at the time to push for Sagawa to be prosecuted in Japan so that "the murderer would never go free".