Japanese prosecutors have indicted US Marine Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, on murder and robbery charges over the alleged killing of Anna Yagi, 39, in a Naha hotel on 3 October, in a case that has prompted protests and a US military curfew in Okinawa.
Japanese prosecutors indicted United States Marine Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, on Sunday 25 October on murder and robbery charges over the alleged killing of a woman in Okinawa, a Naha court spokesman confirmed to Agence France-Presse on Monday. The indictment was reported on Sunday and Monday by NHK, Kyodo and other Japanese outlets.
The victim was Anna Yagi, 39, who was found unresponsive in her Naha hotel room and pronounced dead on the morning of 3 October. Her cause of death has been reported as suffocation, or strangling with a telephone cord. The allegation as reported is that Ballard strangled Yagi with a phone cord at the Naha hotel and stole her backpack containing a wallet.
Ballard, assigned to III Marine Expeditionary Force at Futenma Air Station, was arrested less than 24 hours after the death while walking in the city. Police previously said he denied the charges, and prosecutors have not disclosed his plea on the indictment, according to NHK. The Naha prosecutors' office declined to comment to CNN on Monday.
This is an indictment, not a conviction, and every charge in this report is therefore given in alleged or indicted language. One secondary report, attributed to Yomiuri summaries, said Ballard has since made statements implying some involvement; that detail is not confirmed by CNN or Reuters and has been left out here rather than published as fact.
The case has prompted protests in Okinawa and Tokyo. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the killing a “heinous crime” and said Japan strongly protested to the United States, and a 30-day curfew from midnight to 5 a.m., plus an alcohol ban and training for Okinawa-based American troops, was imposed from 9 October. III Marine Expeditionary Force said it recognises the seriousness of the charges and will cooperate fully with Japanese authorities. Yagi's family said they hope “the real culprit will face up to what he has done and make amends” and that her life was cut short at 39.
Okinawa Governor Genta Koja said American discipline efforts are “completely ineffective.” The trial ahead will test more than one man's guilt: it will test whether the curfew, the protests and the diplomatic pressure change a pattern of incidents that has long strained the American military presence in Okinawa.