Japanese Prosecutors Charge U.S. Marine

[thedrifter]

Japanese Prosecutors Charge U.S. Marine
Associated Press
July 8, 2003


TOKYO - Prosecutors brought formal charges Tuesday against a U.S. Marine arrested last month for allegedly beating and raping a Japanese woman on the southern island of Okinawa.

The alleged incident prompted Japan's government to call for tighter discipline among U.S. military personnel here, and U.S. authorities agreed to hand over the suspect to police before he was indicted in an apparent move to head off local anger.

Marine Lance Cpl. Jose W. Torres, 21, has been charged with rape resulting in injury, said a spokesman for the district prosecutor's office in Naha, Okinawa's capital. The charge carries a minimum sentence of three years in prison if the suspect is convicted.

The assault allegedly took place in the early hours of May 25 in the Okinawan town of Kin.

Police say Torres punched a 19-year-old Japanese woman, breaking her nose, before raping her in an alley.

Crimes involving American troops are a sensitive issue on Okinawa, where a heavy U.S. military presence has long been a source of friction with residents.

Torres, who was arrested June 18, became only the second U.S. serviceman stationed on the island to be turned over to police before charges were brought by a prosecutor. The U.S. military normally retains custody of personnel suspected of crimes until they are indicted but can relinquish suspects sooner if the incident is deemed serious enough.

The rape of a schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995 sparked outrage on Okinawa and led the two countries to agree that Washington would give "sympathetic consideration" to requests for early handovers.

Okinawa, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) southwest of Tokyo, is home to about half of the nearly 50,000 American troops in Japan.

U.S. and Japanese authorities have not disclosed Torres's hometown.

Sempers,

Roger