Japan Drops Rape Charges Against Marine

Soldier Accused Of Raping 14-Year-Old Girl Released After National Furor Over U.S. Troop-Related Crimes

(AP)  A U.S. Marine who was arrested in the alleged rape of a teenage girl in southern Japan has been released after Japanese prosecutors dropped charges against him at the request of the alleged victim, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, 38, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl on the southern island of Okinawa, triggering a nationwide furor over American troop-related crimes in Japan.

Hadnott was released Friday night after the girl withdrew her criminal complaint against him, according to Ryo Fukahori, a ministry official in charge of Japan-U.S. security. As a result, the district prosecutor's office in the prefectural capital of Naha decided to drop charges against Hadnott. Rape charges in the Japanese judicial system can only be filed with a victim's complaint.

U.S. military authorities said they are holding the Marine to conduct their own investigation, Kyodo News agency reported.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters Friday that the United States remains "very concerned about this incident" and has "great sympathies" for the girl and her family. He had no details about the legal process.

Japanese police earlier said Hadnott had admitted to investigators that he forced the girl down and kissed her, but that he denied raping her.

"The girl told us that she wished to be left alone," Chief District Prosecutor Yaichiro Yamashiki was quoted by Kyodo News as telling reporters. "Considering her feelings, we decided that it was not appropriate to pursue our indictment."

Japanese officials said the prosecutor's decision to drop the charges does not mean the problem is over.

"It does not change the fact that the incident occurred," Fukahori said, adding that the rape charges could be separately pursued by the U.S. military.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said "There is no question that the incident is regrettable," while Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said "Japan and the U.S. must firmly take measures so that a problem like this will never be repeated."

Hadnott's Feb. 10 arrest - as well as a series of other damaging criminal accusations against some of the 50,000 American troops based in Japan - have inflamed popular anger at the U.S. military presence.

In a separate alleged rape case, U.S. military authorities pressed charges in December against four servicemen based in the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni in southern Japan after Japanese prosecutors dropped charges against them, citing lack of evidence. U.S. military authorities are currently making a final decision on whether the four should be court-martialed for allegedly raping a 19-year-old woman in Hiroshima in October.

The U.S. military has since imposed tight new restrictions on troops, their families and civilian expatriates in Okinawa and elsewhere, limiting them to bases, workplaces and off-base housing. The military held a "day of reflection" last week to urge troops not to commit crimes.

The steps were part of a broad U.S. campaign since the alleged rape to soothe feelings as rising anger over the alleged crimes threatened to erupt into widespread protests against the American presence.

Japan also has introduced new security steps to curb crime around bases, including expanded information exchanges between the two countries as well as installation of surveillance cameras and joint patrols of entertainment districts around bases on Okinawa.

The alleged rape case also topped the agenda during this week's Japan visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who expressed deep regret over the incident and said she hoped the case will not harm the countries' ties.

[jowand]

We should pull out of Japan and Korea it''s a waste of taxpayer dollars

[beehive21-2009]

38 yo with 14 yo ? hope you learned something,do not mess with little girls,fool.

[bm6005]

We should pull out of Japan and Korea it''''s a waste of taxpayer dollars
Posted by jowand

Amazing, you and I agree on something. Oh and don''t forget Germany and the rest of Europe. Even more of a waste!

[gunnerv1]

Perhaps the Marines need "comfort" girls just like the *** did in WW11

[gunnerv1]

mayhaps the marines need "comfort" girls just like the Nips did in WW11

[Syndicate]

I demand an apology from the Japanese government and People. Yea bring them all home. We don''t need foreign bases any more. We can kill any enemy from here.

[pvperson]

You commenters seem to think that the Japanese would regret an American withdrawal, they wouldn''t. They''ve been trying to get rid of the american bases for years. We''re the ones that want to keep them. So, you''re kind of right, we should pull out, but for their sake not ours.

[rjs1955]

I have long said that if we withdraw ALL US troops from EVERY part of the world back to US soil and then say to the world, "hey, we have only one option if you are a jerk...a nuclear weapon shot from a ship or US soil to put you out of our misery," then we would have fewer problems with the world''s azz-holes. The fact that we keep these conventional forces everywhere is the telltale sign that we aren''t going to actually use nuclear weapons, and the jerks of the world know it and continually taunt us.

[missingamerica]

Methinks a certain young lady has her college education paid for.

[rufuspeckham]

It sounds as though the State Dept. has opted to accept the word of a 14-year Japanese girl who dropped her claim over that of a U.S Marine. Exactly why is that? Because the claim is rape and the accused is male? And therefore he MUST be guilty? Do the words "Duke lacrosse" have any meaning for the State Dept.? Its reps would do well to read "Until Proven Innocent," the widely acclaimed (even by the New York Times, which the book skewers) and painstaking study of the Duke Lacrosse non-rape case, Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson explain that "[t]he standard assertion by feminists that only 2 percent of rape claims are false, which traces to Susan Brownmiller''s 1975 book Against Our Will, is without empirical foundation and belied by a wealth of empirical data. These data suggest that at least 9 percent and probably closer to half of all rape claims are false."

Regardless of gender, every fair-minded person would agree that people lie about everything imaginable for all manner of reasons, good, bad and otherwise. Except, according to the some radical women''s rights advocates, when it comes to the subject of rape. In that singular instance, they would have us believe that, mirabile dictu, one gender is incapable of telling a lie while the other is comprised entirely of pathological liars. Is this in any sense plausible to a fair-minded person? The question scarcely survives its statement.

[sclaires]

Rape is rape where ever it takes place. The Okinawan girl withdrew her charges as she was ashamed of what had taken place. The same thing takes place here in the US everyday but most of the time it is not reported to law enforcement. Why, because of the shame of it all!!!

The Japanese used women in all the countries they conquered as "comfort women" to be polite. I wonder how many of those women killed themselves or "lost their minds" due to the actions of the Japanese soldiers. And, one thing I have not seen is any mention of the "Pit of the Virgins". The Japanese soldiers told the Okinawan people that the Americans would rape and kill their daughters and wives. There was a large pit dug with bamboo stakes in the bottom where young women jumped to their deaths to avoid what the Japanese had said would happen to them. Cruel way to die to say the least.

I would hope that our military would be more civilized in countries they are stationed in but that is not the case. My family was on Okinawa back in the late 1940s and the same things happened then that are happening now. The military raping Okinawan girls and women. At that time they were tried by court martial and sentenced to prison. I should hope that the military does not let this situation drop and that, if guilty, the individual is sentenced to prison. That is the only way to develop friends all over the world.