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US soldiers accused of gang-rape

Japanese police are investigating four US soldiers on allegations of gang-raping a woman in Hiroshima, officials said yesterday.

The US stations troops in Japan under a security alliance, but there has often been friction in locations that host the military.

Four US Marines were accused of an alleged rape in Hiroshima, said Master Sergeant Terence Peck, a spokesman for US forces in Japan.

"The Japanese authorities are investigating," he said, declining further immediate comment.

Chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said a Japanese woman was "raped by several men" early on Sunday.

"Following a report by the victim, Hiroshima prefectural police are investigating the case in cooperation with the US military forces in Japan to reveal the truth," Machimura said.

"Needless to say it would be unforgivable if it is true," he said.

There was no comment from police in Hiroshima, a city best known for suffering the world's first atomic bomb, dropped by the US at the end of World War II.

The TBS television network said the four US Marines met the 20-year-old woman, whom they did not know, at a public event. She entered their car and they allegedly raped her inside the vehicle after driving to a parking lot, the report said.

Hiroshima police are considering asking for custody of the four under a diplomatic agreement between the two countries on military personnel accused of wrongdoing.

If the police seek custody of the troops, the government "would naturally back them up," Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said.

The US stations around 40,000 troops in Japan, which has been officially pacifist since its defeat in World War II.
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