Chief Cupboard Secretary Minoru Kihara advised reporters Monday that “the federal government will work with the USA to completely be certain that there shall be no recurrence, and cut back burdens on native residents”.
Information of the soldier’s arrest instantly prompted Japan’s international affairs and defence ministers to summon senior American officers to convey their “excessive disappointment” and “lodge robust protests”, Kihara added.
The incident got here only a few weeks after Okinawa elected Genta Koja as its new governor, ending the eight-year rule by his predecessor who had lengthy pushed for a serious US army base to be moved off the island.
Koja, 42, accepts a central authorities plan to maintain the US Marine Corps’ Futenma air base on Okinawa’s principal island, however to maneuver it to a much less populated location.
Calling the robbery-murder “extraordinarily malicious in nature”, Koja advised reporters Sunday it “vastly shocked residents right here who’re compelled to reside facet by facet with the bases, and instilled new concern in them”.
“I’m infuriated,” the governor stated.
He stated the incident confirmed US efforts to “educate troopers and enhance their behaviour haven’t been functioning in any respect”, including he’ll “quickly” journey to Tokyo to lodge a protest with high authorities officers together with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Final 12 months, a Japanese court docket sentenced a US Marine accused of choking and trying to rape a lady in her 20s to seven years in jail.
In 2017, a former US Marine and civilian army base employee was sentenced to life in jail for the rape and homicide of a neighborhood girl in Okinawa.
