[859] in peace2
Another Assault in Okinawa
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Felix AuYeung)
Mon Jul 2 21:16:37 2001
Date: 2 Jul 2001 18:15:17 -0700
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To: peace-list@mit.edu
From: Felix AuYeung <Peace-by-Peace@justice.com>
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Japan Police Seek Arrest of Airman In Rape Case
Clay Chandler
Washington Post Service
Tuesday, July 3, 2001
TOKYO Japanese courts issued a warrant Monday for the arrest of a 24-year-old U.S. Air Force sergeant accused of raping a Japanese woman outside a strip of bars near Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.
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The warrant clears the way for the Okinawan police to demand that U.S. military officials surrender the airman, a technical sergeant assigned to the U.S. Air Force's 353d Special Operations Group, so that he may stand trial in a Japanese court.
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The sergeant, whose name has not been made public, was being held by U.S. officials at the air base. He has denied raping the woman.
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But Okinawa prefectural policemen said Monday that, after investigating the case for four days, questioning more than a dozen witnesses and studying fingerprints on a car near the scene of the alleged attack, they had accumulated ample evidence to support accusations against the U.S. airman. Okinawa's chief inspector, Isamu Inamine, told reporters gathered outside the island's police headquarters Monday night that the local authorities had asked Japan's national police agency and Foreign Affairs Ministry to petition the U.S. government for custody of the suspect.
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Under the terms of a joint "status of forces" agreement, part of Japan's security arrangements with the United States, Washington is not obligated to hand over U.S. military personnel facing criminal offenses until they are indicted formally by Japanese prosecutors.
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But in the wake of a 1995 case in which three U.S. servicemen were convicted of raping a 12-year-old Okinawan girl, the United States promised to "favorably consider" requests from the Japanese police to relinquish custody of U.S. servicemen accused of serious offenses such as rape and murder.
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American officials declined to comment on the court's decision to issue an arrest warrant. But the Japanese authorities said they expected Kadena officials to turn the suspect over to them.
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Japanese investigators have declined to offer a detailed description of the alleged assault, which has fanned Okinawans' strong resentment of the U.S. military presence and marred a weekend meeting at Camp David between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan.
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The police said that witnesses support the woman's statement that she was sexually assaulted Friday at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time by a black man, apparently in his 20s, in the parking lot of American Village, a shopping and restaurant area in the seaside town of Chatan.
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Witnesses told the police that the assailant and at least three other non-Japanese men fled in a vehicle with U.S. military license plates, which bear the letter "Y."
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Japan's Jiji Press reported Monday that the sergeant told Japanese interrogators he and the woman had consensual sex but that he did not assault or threaten her. That report could not be confirmed.
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The mayor of Chatan, Choichi Hentoma, summoned municipal officials Monday for an emergency discussion of the alleged incident. His aides said that Mr. Hentoma plans to demand a curfew for base personnel to limit late-night carousing.
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Mr. Koizumi's chief cabinet secretary, Yasuo Fukuda, met with the Okinawa governor, Keiichi Inamine, on Monday and told reporters that the Japanese government would be "terribly troubled" if the accusations against the U.S. serviceman were true.
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In his Camp David meeting with Mr. Koizumi, Mr. Bush expressed "deep regret" that a U.S. serviceman was suspected of the assault and expressed hope that the offender would be brought to justice.
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The rape case is the latest of a series of incidents involving U.S. servicemen in Chatan, which borders Kadena, America's largest military installation in Asia. Earlier this year, after a U.S. serviceman was charged with setting fire to two buildings in the American Village's main entertainment district, Chatan's town assembly unanimously passed a resolution urging that all U.S. servicemen leave Okinawa.
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American Village, with its jumble of bars, restaurants, shops, cinemas and nightclubs, is a magnet for off-duty service personnel from Kadena and a second U.S. military facility nearby, Futenma Air Base.
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The victim, who is in her 20s, told the police that she was accosted and attacked after leaving a nightclub where she had been drinking with friends. The police have dismissed early reports that the woman was raped by three or four U.S. servicemen but they said that there were some Americans nearby at the time.
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U.S. military officials have said that some witnesses told them that Americans had tried to stop the assault but other accounts suggested that U.S. servicemen may have acted as lookouts during the assault.
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