Authorities were yesterday searching for a US sailor in Japan after his credit card was reportedly found in the car of a taxi driver who was stabbed to death.
The case comes with relations between Japan and the US military tense, following a series of high-profile crimes linked to servicemen, including the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl by a Marine.
Masaaki Takahashi, a 61-year-old taxi driver, was found dead with a knife in his neck in his parked taxi late on Wednesday on a road in Yokosuka, a military hub at the mouth of Tokyo Bay, police said.
"The US forces contacted me and informed me that a US soldier may have been involved in the murder case in Yokosuka," Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters.
He declined to elaborate.
The US military pledged to cooperation on the case.
"We condemn this horrific crime in the strongest possible terms," the US Navy command in Japan said in a statement.
"The US Navy is standing by to help with the Japanese police and in whatever manner is needed," it said.
Local media said a credit card and other items were found in the car that were believed to belong to a 22-year-old sailor.
The sailor, part of the US 7th Fleet based in Yokosuka, had been missing for weeks before the incident and remains unaccounted for, television networks said.
Reports said Takahashi, who was based in Tokyo, some 65km to the north, may have argued with his customer over the fare, which police said was about 17,000 yen (US$170).
More than 40,000 US troops are based in Japan under a security alliance with the close US ally, which has been officially pacifist since World War II.
But the military's reputation has been severely tarnished recently after a series of crimes.
The US military next month will court-martial four Marines accused of gang-raping a 19-year-old woman in the western city of Hiroshima.
Another US Marine was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl on the southern island of Okinawa, home to more than half the US forces in the country. Japanese prosecutors dropped the case as the girl did not want to pursue it amid intense media attention.
Residents of Okinawa have called a rally at which they hope to draw more than 10,000 people tomorrow to protest crimes and accidents by US soldiers and military personnel.
An Australian woman who was raped by a US sailor in Yokosuka in 2002 said that she would make a speech and call for action to stop crimes by US servicemen.
On Sunday alone in Okinawa, two taxi drivers were allegedly attacked by English-speaking passengers, police said.
In one case, police arrested two children of US soldiers, while in the other police were asking for investigative cooperation from the US military.
The US military last month put all troops and their relatives in Okinawa and western Japan's Iwakuni under a curfew for nearly two weeks in an attempt to calm public anger.
It lifted part of the curfew restricting family members earlier this month.
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
RSS