U.S. sailor pleads guilty to March rape of Japanese woman in Okinawa
Source: Japan Times
A U.S. Navy sailor pleaded guilty Friday to raping a Japanese woman at a hotel in Okinawa Prefecture in March, at his first hearing at Naha District Court. Justin Castellanos, 24, was indicted for raping the woman in her 40s at the hotel in the prefectural capital in the early hours of March 13. He took the woman, a tourist from Fukuoka Prefecture, into his room after finding her asleep in a corridor in the hotel. <snip>
The trial comes amid growing anti-base sentiment in the prefecture following the arrest last week of former marine Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a civilian employed at the U.S. Air Force’s Kadena Air Base, for allegedly dumping the body of Rina Shimabukuro, a 20-year-old office worker from Uruma. Investigative sources have said Shinzato admitted to killing the victim after sexually assaulting her.
In the meantime, a midnight curfew and other restrictions imposed on all U.S. service members on Okinawa took effect on Friday, according to the U.S. forces in Japan. In an announcement Thursday, Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, commander of U.S. military forces in Okinawa, said the intent of the restrictions was “to observe a period of unity and mourning by curtailing off-installation activities” in response to the alleged crimes by Castellanos and Shinzato.
Read more: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/05/27/national/crime-legal/u-s-sailor-pleads-guilty-march-rape-japanese-woman-okinawa/#.V0g3E9ehQgI
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