US soldiers stationed on Japan’s Okinawa have been given a month-long curfew and banned from drinking alcohol while they undergo discipline training after a Marine was alleged to have murdered and robbed a local woman.
Yagi died of asphyxiation after Ballard allegedly “pressed on her neck,” police told the Stars and Stripes newspaper.
Hotel staff found the woman unconscious in her room in the early hours of Saturday after she failed to check out. Around 200 officers were involved in a search for the man earlier caught on CCTV entering the hotel with the victim, local media reported.
The case is the latest in a string of incidents stretching back years that have fuelled unease over the large US troop presence on the island chain near Taiwan and China.
The case is the latest in a string of incidents stretching back years that have fuelled unease over the large US troop presence on the island chain near Taiwan and China, with US officials warning it could undermine ties vital to security in East Asia. Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, is suspected of killing Anna Yagi, 39, in a hotel in Naha, the capital of the southernmost prefecture, on Saturday and taking her wallet and backpack.
Ballard denied the allegations, police said.
