Alwaght- Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, will confront Barack Obama over crimes committed by US military personnel in the country after a US air force base staff member admitted killing a woman on Okinawa.
As the US president prepares to visit Japan for the G7 next week he faces tough questions from Abe over a case that could fuel opposition to the presence of US troops on the southern Japanese island. Abe says he's outraged at the murder of a 20-year-old woman, following the arrest of a US man on suspicion of homicide in Okinawa.
“I feel extremely strong outrage,” Abe told reporters. He added that he has no words "to express, considering how the family" of the victim feels. "We urge the US side to take thorough measures to prevent the recurrence of such events."
Kenneth Shinzato, a 32-year-old civil employee of the US military base in Okinawa, and former US Marine, has been arrested for his alleged involvement in the woman’s death. He allegedly admitted that he throttled and stabbed his victim, Kyodo News said, citing sources close to the police investigation.
The 20-year-old woman, Rina Shimabukurio, went missing on April 28. The last person to speak to her was her boyfriend, who told police she had gone for a walk that night and never returned.
On Thursday, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida summoned US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy to lodge a protest.
“I expressed a strong regret to Ambassador Kennedy and lodged a stern protest. I told her an incident like this is inexcusable and that I feel strong indignation,” Kishida told reporters after the meeting.
Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, who is a vocal critic of US bases in the prefecture, said he was also outraged at the young woman's killing.
"As I look back at all the developments to date, I'm simply speechless," Onaga said.
The latest incident comes two months after a US soldier was arrested over the rape of a Japanese woman at a hotel in Naha in the south of Okinawa.
The case triggered massive anger in Okinawa, home to more than half of about 50,000 US troops based in Japan. The island’s residents have been very sensitive to such incidents, particularly after the infamous gang rape of a 12-year-old child in 1995.
Most Okinawans oppose plans, agreed by Tokyo and Washington two decades ago, to move Futenma base from its current location in the middle of a densely populated town to a remote coastal area on the outskirts of the town of Nago.
Next week, Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, where the first atomic bomb was dropped on 6 August 1945, killing 140,000 people instantly and in the months that followed.
