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NAHA—Okinawa prefectural police declined to disclose another suspected sex crime involving a U.S. serviceman, sources said on June 28.

They said that a 21-year-old private first class of the U.S. Marine Corps injured a woman in an attempted rape in late May on Okinawa’s main island.

Prefectural police received a report about the attack, tracked down the suspect and arrested him outside a U.S. military base.

The Naha District Public Prosecutors Office then indicted the serviceman on charges of non-consensual sex resulting in injury on June 17.

According to the Status of Forces Agreement, if Japanese police arrest U.S. military personnel over crimes committed when they are off-duty, they are taken into custody by Japanese authorities for the investigations.

The sources said prefectural police held the Marine in custody after the arrest and investigated the case.

But this incident was not reported to the public or even the Okinawa prefectural government.

“I am really angry,” Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki said on June 28. “We need to reorganize our communication system.”

Tamaki and the prefectural government were already livid about not being informed about a suspected sexual assault against a minor by a U.S. airman around Christmas last year.

The 25-year-old American suspect who belongs to the Kadena Air Base in the prefecture was indicted in May by Naha prosecutors.

However, police, prosecutors and the Foreign Ministry did not tell the prefectural government about the case, saying they wanted to protect the privacy of the underage girl.

The prefecture learned about the case through a media report on June 25.

According to provisional figures of the prefectural police, U.S. military personnel were involved in five cases of violent crime, such as murder, robbery and sexual assault, from January to May this year.

For all of last year, there were two such incidents.

(This article was written by Kazuyuki Ito and Taro Ono.)

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