US marine arrested in Okinawa

STRAIN ON TIES: The police arrested a 20-year-old man who matched the description of a suspect caught on CCTV leaving a hotel in Naha with the victim’s belongings

A US Marine stationed on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa was arrested on suspicion of the murder of a Japanese woman, police said yesterday. The suspect “killed the 39-year-old woman at a hotel in Naha and stole her wallet on Saturday,” a local police spokesman said.

US Ambassador George Glass posted on social media that he had spoken with Japan’s foreign ministry and Okinawa’s governor to offer “our sincere condolences and pledging full cooperation as the investigation continues.”

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the crime “exceptionally brutal and vicious” on X. The government has urged the US “to provide maximum cooperation with the investigation, enforce stricter discipline among US military personnel, and take thorough measures to prevent the recurrence of similar crimes,” Takaichi said.

US Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft are pictured at the US Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station in Ginowan on Japan’s island of Okinawa on March 24, 2018.

Photo: Reuters

Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese news 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 the 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 said.

He reportedly denied the charges. The US has about 54,000 military personnel stationed in Japan, mostly on Okinawa. A series of crimes including rapes, assaults, hit-and-run and drink-driving accidents by US personnel have long sparked protests on Okinawa and have been a frequent thorn in relations between close security allies Japan and the US. Last year, a Japanese court sentenced a US Marine accused of choking and attempting to rape a woman in her 20s to seven years in prison.

In 2017, a former US Marine and civilian military base worker was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a local woman in Okinawa. In the same year, US Forces in Japan banned all personnel from consuming alcohol after a drunken US Marine crashed his vehicle into a mini-truck, killing its 61-year-old local driver.