Japanese police yesterday said they arrested a 24-year-old US sailor on suspicion of raping a Japanese woman on Okinawa, in a case that could further fan sentiment against Washington’s military presence on the fortified southern island.
Okinawa was the site of a brutal World War II battle between Japan and the US, but is now considered a strategic linchpin supporting the two nations’ decades-long security alliance.
However, pacifist sentiment runs high on the crowded island, which makes up less than 1 percent of Japan’s total land area, but is home to about 75 percent of US military bases in the nation.
More than half of the 47,000 US military personnel in Japan are stationed there and rapes and other crimes by US service personnel have sparked local protests in the past.
A spokesman with the Okinawan prefectural police yesterday identified the arrested seaman as Justin Castellanos, stationed at the US Marine Corps Camp Schwab base on the island.
Castellanos, arrested on Sunday, allegedly raped the woman earlier the same day while she was unconscious at a hotel in the Okinawan capital city of Naha, the spokesman said.
A spokesman for the US Navy in Japan had no immediate comment on the arrest.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the alleged incident is “extremely regrettable.”
Suga said the Japanese government had “expressed a strong protest” to the US side, adding he hopes that police can solve the case.
“The US side said it would be a very disappointing incident if the allegation was true and that they’re taking this matter seriously,” he added, referring to what he described as the US response to Japan’s protest.
Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga expressed anger over the alleged rape.
“It was a serious crime in violation of women’s human rights and can never be tolerated” he said, according to Kyodo News agency. “I feel strong resentment.”
According to Japanese media, the sailor found the woman, who was visiting Okinawa, asleep in the corridor of the hotel and took her to his room.
The two were staying at the same hotel, but were not acquainted, the Asahi Shimbun daily and other media said.
A brutal 1995 abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl on Okinawa by three US servicemen sparked massive protests, which led the US government to pledge efforts to strengthen troop discipline to prevent such crimes and reduce its footprint on the island.
However, continued crimes by US personnel remain an irritant in Japan-US relations and a rallying point for Okinawans opposed to the US military bases.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion