The U.S. Navy handed over a U.S. sailor suspected of killing and robbing a 56-year-old Japanese woman to Japanese police on Saturday, a spokesman said.
Seaman William Reese, 21, was arrested after being escorted to the local police station in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, where he is suspected of killing Yoshie Sato on Jan. 3, Japanese police said.
Japanese media said Reese, who is based aboard the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier, had confessed to the killing, but neither local police nor the Navy could confirm the reports.
Sato was found bleeding and unconscious near a building in Yokosuka and died from internal injuries, police have said. Domestic media reports said the sailor had returned to base in blood-stained clothes, but had been vague as to his motives for the attack.
The suspect had been based on the Kitty Hawk at Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, since May 2004 in his first navy assignment since completing his training, Commander John Wallach, director of public affairs for the U.S. Naval Forces Japan said.
The Navy will not release further details of the suspect until his indictment, Wallach added.
Awkward time
The incident comes at an awkward time, as Tokyo and Washington attempt to hammer out a deal with Japanese local communities to allow the reorganisation of U.S. bases in Japan in an attempt to make the U.S. military more flexible.
A U.S.-Japan pact governing the conduct of U.S. military personnel in Japan does not require the transfer of military suspects until they are charged.
But after the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl by three U.S. servicemen on the southern island of Okinawa, which triggered huge protests there, Washington agreed to give favourable consideration to pre-indictment transfers in the case of suspected rape, murder and other “heinous” crimes.
Japan’s foreign ministry expressed satisfaction with the U.S. handling of the incident.
“The suspect was quickly identified thanks to thorough cooperation between the U.S. and Japanese investigative authorities,” it said in a statement. “The two governments will continue to cooperate closely on the case.”
Nearly 50,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan under the allies’ bilateral security treaty.
Many in the Yokosuka area also opposed to U.S. Navy plans to replace the aging conventionally powered Kitty Hawk with what would be the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to be based in Japan, the only country ever hit by atomic bombs.
