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Japan Drops Charges Against Okinawa Marine

Japanese authorities have decided to drop charges:

TOKYO — An American marine accused of raping a 14-year-old girl on Okinawa was released by Japanese police on Friday after the girl dropped her accusation, the police said.

It was unclear if the marine’s release could help defuse the furor in Japan over the case, which had led to wide questioning of the military alliance with the United States and the presence of more than 40,000 American troops here. Fallout from the accusation had reached the high into United States ties with Japan, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed deep regret to the Japanese prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda.

Earlier, Mr. Fukuda had called the incident “unforgivable” and demanded that the United States take action to prevent crime by its service members.

The marine’s arrest on Feb. 11 prompted major protests on Okinawa, where memories are still raw of a 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three American servicemen.

The accused marine in this case, Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, 38, was returned to Marine custody after Japanese prosecutors dropped the rape charges. Sergeant Hadnott had denied the charges, saying that he only kissed the girl as he gave her a ride home.

It was also unclear why she had retracted her story. Japanese authorities seemed to suggest that she had decided against legal action, possibly to avoid the glare of public attention. Some media commentators and blogs had begun to question why the schoolgirl was in a car with the marine.

Yaichiro Yamashiki, the chief prosecutor at the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office, said the determination to drop the charges had been made “out of consideration for the victim’s feelings,” according to the Kyodo News Agency. “The girl herself wants to be left in peace,” he was quoted as saying.

The situation is not over, though. The U.S. military has announced that it will continue its own investigation into the incident. There also might be a protest rally later this month.

Side Note: In case you were wondering, no charges will be pressed against the marine who wandered drunk into a home in Okinawa and took a nap on the living room couch on February 18.

19 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - March 1, 2008 at 8:53 am

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags: japan, marine, news, okinawa, rape

Level3

Just a comment on statistics, as I (and none of you) know enough about the facts of this case.

Japanese police stats are just numbers on arrests, not convictions. A key problem with the “gaijin crime wave” bullshit stats is that they’re relying on arrest statistics; and even then, gaijin ar not arrested (under 2% of arrests) disproportionately to the gaijin population (around 1-1.5% of the population)

I’d tend to assume that a gaijin is more likely to be arrested, even if innocent (or just in a case that doesn’t have strong enough evidence to be prosecuted).

Reasons could be police racism or enthusiasm to arrest gaijin, witness racism or enthusiasm to call the police when a gaijin is involved while they would just forgive and forget a Nihonjin’s petty crime(the drunk marine sleep-in?), mis-identification, communication problems (arresting a gaijin victim of a Japanese attacker, letting the attacker go, because of course, only gaijin can be criminals) lack of Japanese language ability preventing a gaijin from smooth-talking his way out of the koban, and just specific targetting of gaijin by police for random ID checks.

We can’t quantify this bias. But in the end, are arrested gaijin more likely to be released than Japanese? Then we could figure out the “true” gaijin crime rate.

mozu

The police tries to tackle with foreign crimes(chinese,koreans, etc), and the media coverage tend to be influenced by its policy, so I believe your anger isn’t unjustified. Healthy sceptism is needed for better governance.

But, this case should not be considered as the example of treatment of foreign crimes in general. This case has its perculiar political and historical connotations. I don’t want to pretend to share these contexts with okinawans and I’m opposed to any politicizing attempt to use this case, but I’m also opposed to any attempt to start victimhood politics(I don’t say about you). What we can do is checking the appropriateness of legal procedures without any prejudgement.
Fleet

Hey, it’s their country bub! It’s not California Newyork or anywhere in America. And if you know so much more than everybody else I have to say that for a 14 year old school girl yor eigo is dead on.

Bad Wolf

Did they perform a rape kit on the girl? Did they take her to the hospital to get checked out? Do they do that here? My wife seems to think they do. So if there was no rape they should have known that on the night of the incident. Does anyone know?
http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/2008/02/let-diaglogue-between-j-and-nj-begin.html ponta

A rape is a crime requiring a (formal) complaint from the victim for prosecution in Japan.The rape-victim sometimes drops the charge, for instance, when she just wants to go on without repeating traumatic experience.
The truth abut the case? —-we don’t know. All we know is that the man admitted he kissed and pressed up against the girl and there were lots of people who wanted to use this incident for political reasons.
Kevin

Hmmm…Rice visits Japan and at the same time charges are dropped. Coincidence?

Dakk

I think not.

Anonymous

This may sound about as cynical as it gets, and I don’t know enough about how the situation is on the ground in Okinawa, but I would suspect a possible case of enjo kosai where the girl was for some reason angered by the marine. Just a two-cents comment.

http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/2008/02/let-diaglogue-between-j-and-nj-begin.html ponta

That’s very insulting to the girl. The man admitted that he kissed and pushed up against her, which itself constitutes the crime. But the prosecutor can not prosecute it because it is a part of alleged rape which requires a formal complaint from the girl. He has never said they agreed.
Dakk

Sounds like to me that they threatened the girl, and forced her to take back her accusation.

Bossu

You people defending a rapist are pathetic.

Nabe

Who here exactly is defending the accused?
Kevin

Defending a convicted rapist is one thing. Defending someone accused of rape is totally different. I like to think that someone is considered innocent until proven guilty and I think these kinds of comments should wait until the accused has actually had the chance to go through a proper trial.
Bossu, if you have proof he raped the girl, send it to authorities – I would like to see them in jail; otherwise, you’re just trolling.

The Overthinker

No, no, the system doesn’t work like that. You see, when you have a proclaimed minority that requires protection (even if self-proclaimed, and even if the actual need for protection is not established), anyone who is charged with committing a crime against them is automatically seen as guilty by those that have determined this minority to need (their) protection. In other words, it’s not merely enough to be innocent, you must avoid all possibility of it ever appearing that you might not be innocent. This is why rapists are convicted by the popular press and sentiment even if they never go to trial, or why parents are forbidden from photographing their children at pools or even in parks, or why certain airlines do not allow men to sit next to unaccompanied children.

Brian

If you’re trying to argue that the law is equal against men, women, and minorities, and all manner of charges, you have an impossible position to defend.

Brian B

I guess no one knows the meaning of “innocent until proven guilty.”
happy foriegner

IMO I think it is likely, the family was bought off.

Read the works of Chalmers Johnson. Okinawa is a key piece of real estate for the US military with numerous bases from every service, serving as a jumping-off point for potential missions against anywhere in Asia.

This incident happened, along with a long history of assaults from military personnel. The locals and the entire nation started getting riled up, making it sticky for the US to hold onto their bases.

I can’t help but wonder if the US gov’t gave her and her family a truckload of $$$ to shut up to calm things down.
Fleet

If you’ve been a Marine in Oki you know that young Marines are taught that Oki belongs to the Marine Corps. Sensitivity training might tell you one thing but what does Gunny tell you? When you look at it like that and plenty of girls wanna try out being with an American and everybody says yes and then one day someone says no what happens? An earlier post said that “gaijin” are not disproportionately represented. From my experience that’s more a matter of leeway given by the local pokey. I doubt she got paid off. I doubt she was raped in the sense of non-consensual vagina/anal/oral intercourse. I doubt he didn’t try. I doubt he thought she would say no. I doubt she didn’t find him attractive at first. I doubt she or her family will see the good in Americans being there again. As for being 14 just look at onae that are 13,14,15,16,17,18 and tell me you can tell the difference 100%. Still for all the hmm and ha, we could be better places strategically speaking and I think it might be time we consider leaving it all to the zoomies and staying fleet ready – though, of course I hate boats but then again I’m out.
http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/2008/02/let-diaglogue-between-j-and-nj-begin.html ponta

Exactly

Japan Drops Charges Against Okinawa Marine

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