TSUKUBA — The 15-year statute of limitations expired midnight Monday on the murder of a Japanese academic who translated British author Salman Rushdie's disputed novel "The Satanic Verses" into Japanese.

With the expiration of the statute, prosecutors technically is no longer able to indict the killer of Hitoshi Igarashi in July 1991, but the police said they will continue to investigate the case. On July 12, 1991, Igarashi, 44, a researcher of Islamic studies and an assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba, was found dead with multiple stab wounds to his neck and face in a hallway of a building in the university's complex in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.