The American ambassador to Japan has been summoned after a US Marine was arrested for killing a woman in a hotel room in Okinawa.
Speaking at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo on Sunday, US Ambassador George Edward Glass expressed deep regret over the loss of life of the Japanese woman, vowing to extend “full cooperation” with local authorities in their investigations.
Glass said he discussed with Okinawa-based Marine Air Ground Task Force commander Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson “our next steps in strengthening that bond of trust with our Japanese partners and base-hosting communities,” according to a statement on US social media platform X.
He claimed Americans are committed to doing whatever is in their power to stop the Japanese women from being assaulted by the tens of thousands of US servicemen stationed there.
In a meeting with Gen. Watson on Monday, Okinawa Governor Genta Koja and Naha Mayor Satoru Chinen handed the US official revisions to the agreement governing US military personnel in Japan.
Police in Japan arrested Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, for killing Anna Yagi, 40.
According to local police, Jacob assaulted the woman in a hotel room before stealing her backpack and money wallet in Naha in the early hours of Saturday.
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi described the killing of the woman in the hotel room as “exceptionally brutal and heinous.”
“The Japanese government has lodged a strong protest with the US side and has strongly demanded maximum cooperation with the investigation, as well as strict disciplinary action against US military personnel and thorough measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents and accidents.”
The pro-US PM said such incidents are “extremely regrettable.”
US troops stationed in Japan have a decades-long record of assaulting and killing the locals. Yagi died of asphyxiation after Ballard "pressed on her neck,” a police spokesman told Stars and Stripes at the headquarters on Monday. Ballard, however, denied charges lodged against him, claiming his innocence.
The murder has caused outrage in Okinawa and beyond, with Japanese foreign and defense ministries summoning the ambassador as well as the commander of US Forces in Japan.
Also, a crowd of some 100 people gathered outside the Okinawa prefectural government building on Sunday and protested the killing.
One Japanese woman in her 40s said the fact that a Marine sent to the host country to protect its people kills them is contradictory.
“I feel it's a contradiction that a serviceman stationed at a US military base in Okinawa to protect Japan has killed a civilian.”
“How much longer do we have to bear all of this?” the protester demanded to know.
In 2016, former Marine Kenneth Franklin Gadson was arrested and later convicted of killing Okinawa resident Rina Shimabukuro.
Also, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Gabriel Olivero killed a Japanese woman in 2019.
Rape cases involving US servicemen are too many.
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