Tokyo expresses anger after U.S. man charged over Japanese woman's death

Record ID: 102581

  • Title: Tokyo expresses anger after U.S. man charged over Japanese woman's death
  • Date: 20th May 2016
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (FILE) (REUTERS) PRIME MINISTER'S RESIDENCE JAPANESE FLAG
  • Embargoed: 4th June 2016 05:52
  • Keywords: Japan government US man Okinawa woman killed death
  • Location: TOKYO AND OKINAWA, JAPAN
  • City: TOKYO AND OKINAWA, JAPAN
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA0024IM2ZWN
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his anger on Friday (May 20), a day after an American man working at a U.S. military base in Japan was arrested on suspicion of dumping the body of a 20-year-old Japanese woman.
    The case is likely to stir anti-U.S. sentiment ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama.
    The 32-year-old civilian working at the base on the island of Okinawa admitted to abandoning the corpse but did not make any comments about whether he had killed the woman, an Okinawa police spokesman said.
    "I feel strong anger. I believe it's a regrettable situation. I am at a loss of words when I think of her family," Abe told journalists.
    Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida summoned Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, to lodge a protest.
    "I am protesting strongly as a representative of the Japanese people," Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fumio Kishida, told , Caroline Kennedy during a meeting late on Thursday (May 19).
    "Mr. Minister, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come here tonight to express my deepest sorrow on behalf of the American government and the American people," Kennedy replied.
    Okinawa, the site of a bloody World War Two land battle, hosts the bulk of U.S. military forces in Japan, and many residents resent what they see as an unfair burden. U.S. installations take up about 18 percent of Okinawa's land.
    In 1995, a 12-year-old schoolgirl was raped by three U.S. servicemen on Okinawa, sparking huge protests, and earlier this year, a U.S. sailor was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman at a hotel in Naha in the south the island.
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