JAPAN: A US airman has been sentenced to almost three years in a Japanese prison for raping a woman on the southern island of Okinawa.
The district court in Naha yesterday sentenced US Air Force Staff Sgt, Timothy Woodland (25), to 32 months in jail for the rape in a case that has fuelled already simmering tensions over the thousands of US troops based there.
Sgt Woodland denied during his trial last year raping the 24-year-old woman on the hood of a car in a shopping centre parking lot in the Okinawan town of Charan last June. He said the sex was consensual.
The presiding judge, Mr Soichi Hayashida, said the crime was "horrendous". In his verdict, read out to a packed courtroom, he said the pain inflicted on the victim, both physical and psychological, was grave.
"The accused has shown no signs of remorse. Therefore it is only natural that a heavy punishment be sought," the judge added.
Sgt Woodland, wearing a beige suit, was led by police into court handcuffed with a rope bound around his waist. He said he felt sick as the judge was finishing his verdict, and asked if he could sit down.
The judge said that witness accounts and circumstantial evidence supported the victim's testimony that she had been raped despite fiercely resisting and screaming, while Sgt Woodland's story lacked credibility.
Defence lawyers said a decision on whether to appeal would be made after consulting with Sgt Woodland.
The case followed a series of cases of sexual assault involving US servicemen on Okinawa and helped reignite simmering resentment towards US forces on the tiny island.
Okinawa has less than 1 per cent of Japan's total land mass but is home to 26,000 of the 48,000 US military personnel in the country. Many residents believe they are bearing an unfair share of the burden of supporting US-Japan security ties.
In 1995, three US military personnel were given prison sentences ranging from 6½ to seven years when they were found guilty of raping a 12-year-old Japanese schoolgirl on Okinawa .
There are currently 15 US servicemen serving time in Japanese prisons for various crimes.
The latest incident and the delay in handing over Sgt Woodland to the Japanese authorities soured relations between the two countries.
It took Washington a week to hand over Sgt Woodland to the authorities last year due to doubts over whether he would be given fair treatment by Japanese police.