A woman’s murder allegedly committed by a U.S. Marine in Okinawa is a “heinous crime,” Japan’s premier said on Monday, as the new accusation of violence involving American forces sparked public outrage.
Crimes including rapes, assaults, hit-and-run and drunk-driving incidents by U.S. personnel have long sparked protests on the island, which bears a disproportionate burden of hosting about 70% of U.S. military facilities in Japan.
The new case involves a U.S. Marine stationed on Okinawa who was arrested on suspicion of killing a 39-year-old woman at a hotel in the city of Naha and stealing her wallet, police said on Sunday.
The suspect has denied the allegations.
Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media outlets, citing investigation sources, reported that CCTV footage from near the scene showed a foreign man entering a room with a woman and later leaving with her belongings.
Police then found a 20-year-old man who matched the description of the suspect seen in the footage and asked him to accompany them voluntarily to a local police station, where he was arrested, NHK reported.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told lawmakers the government has lodged a strong protest with the United States, urging its “full cooperation with the investigation” and “strict discipline among U.S. military personnel.”
“The occurrence of such a heinous crime is extremely regrettable,” Takaichi said.
Emotions run high
Around 100 people participated in a rally in Naha on Sunday, holding up placards stating their “strong protest” against the murder, Japanese media reported.
Okinawa native Sorane Sakihama, 24, who organized a similar rally in Tokyo on Sunday, said she cried upon learning about the woman’s death.
“We couldn’t protect her. That made me so angry and sad,” the university student told AFP, adding that she was planning to organize another protest in front of the U.S. Embassy for Tuesday evening.
“I want to ask them — what are these soldiers stationed here for? They might say they are here to protect lives or boost security. But how can they say that when a life was taken by their own?”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters on Monday that “the government will work with the United States to thoroughly make sure there will be no recurrence, and reduce burdens on local residents.”
News of the Marine’s arrest immediately prompted Japan’s foreign affairs and defense ministers to summon senior U.S. officials to convey their “extreme disappointment” and “lodge strong protests,” Kihara said.
The incident came just a few weeks after Okinawa elected Genta Koja as its new governor, ending the eight-year rule of his predecessor who had long pushed for a major U.S. military base to be moved off the island.
Koja, 42, accepts a central government plan to keep the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma air base on Okinawa’s main island, but to move it to a less populated location.
Calling the murder-robbery “extremely malicious in nature,” Koja told reporters on Sunday it had “hugely shocked residents here who are forced to live side-by-side with the bases, and instilled new fear in them.”
“I am infuriated,” Koja said.
He said the incident showed U.S. efforts to “educate soldiers and improve their behavior have not been functioning at all.”
Koja said he will travel to Tokyo “soon” to lodge a protest with top government officials, including Takaichi.
A Japanese court sentenced a U.S. Marine accused of choking and attempting to rape a woman in her 20s to seven years in prison last year.
In 2017, a former U.S. Marine and civilian military base worker was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a local woman in Okinawa.
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