Japanese prosecutors indicted a US Marine, 20, over a woman’s killing in Naha. The case renewed anti-base anger.
Public prosecutors in Okinawa, Japan, indicted U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, on robbery and murder charges on Sunday after a 39-year-old woman was found dead in a hotel room earlier this month.
According to the indictment, Ballard strangled the woman with a telephone cord in a hotel room in Naha, the prefectural capital, between about 2:10 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. on Oct. 3 and took a backpack containing her wallet and other belongings. The cause of death was suffocation, the indictment said. Investigators said the woman checked in with a man around 2:10 a.m. and a hotel employee found her body at about 4:15 a.m. Security footage showed a man with a backpack and tattoos on both arms leaving the hotel, and the backpack was found nearby. Okinawa police arrested Ballard, who is stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, after finding him walking on a street in Okinawa city. Prosecutors have not disclosed whether he has admitted the charges. A conviction for murder and robbery carries a sentence of death or life imprisonment.
Hiroya Ishii, deputy chief of the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office, said prosecutors would present accurate arguments and prove the case based on law and evidence. The case has renewed anti-base sentiment in Okinawa, which hosts most of the U.S. military installations in Japan. Okinawa Gov. Genta Koja has stepped up calls on the central government to take preventive measures. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the killing a heinous crime. Demonstrators protested outside Japan’s Foreign Ministry after the killing.
The U.S. military in Okinawa imposed a 30-day curfew for troops from midnight to 5 a.m. on Oct. 9. Japan and the United States have launched talks on preventive measures, including a review of the “liberty policy” governing off-base conduct and joint patrols by U.S. forces and Japanese police, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said.
Information for this report was provided by The Japan Times, Jiji Press, Kyodo News and Bernama.