Japan's leader calls alleged rape by U.S. marine 'unforgivable'
TOKYO: Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda expressed anger Tuesday over the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl in Okinawa by a U.S. marine, calling the incident "unforgivable."
"Even though this has occurred several times in the past, it has happened again," Fukuda said. "I take this very seriously."
Staff Sergeant Tyrone Luther Hadnott, a 38-year-old marine from Camp Courtney in Okinawa, was arrested after being accused of attacking the girl inside his car Sunday night. Hadnott, who has denied raping the girl, has yet to be charged.
The incident quickly drew anger in Okinawa, as several dozen protesters demonstrated outside a U.S. military base there and the prefecture's assembly passed a resolution of protest both against the United States and Tokyo. In 1995, three U.S. marines gang-raped a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa, provoking massive protests.
After being summoned by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Japan, Joseph Donovan, said that this "is an extremely regrettable case and that we take this very, very seriously."
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"I pledged our complete cooperation with the ongoing investigation of the Japanese authorities," Donovan said.
According to the Japanese police, Hadnott met the young girl Sunday and offered to take her home on his motorcycle. Instead, he took her to his home, where he tried to kiss her. After the girl started crying, he said that he would take her home in his car, where he is said to have then raped her.
Hadnott has denied raping the girl. According to the police, however, he has acknowledged pressing her down and kissing her.
Officials in Okinawa, a set of subtropical islands hundreds of miles away from the main Japanese islands and an independent kingdom until the 19th century, have long complained that the prefecture hosts the majority of the more than 40,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan. Even as Tokyo has lobbied Okinawa to accept the relocation of a long-delayed U.S. Marine air station in the town of Futenma, the United States is scheduled to transfer 8,000 troops from Okinawa to Guam over the next several years.