Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, said he would discuss the issue of violent crime by U.S. military personnel with President Barack Obama during his visit to Japan next week, local media reported on Friday.
A U.S. worker at an air base was arrested this week and reportedly confessed to killing a 20-year-old resident on the southern island of Okinawa.
“I feel strong resentment over the incident, we want to demand that the U.S. side takes rigorous measures,’’ Abe told newsmen.
About half of the 53,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan are stationed on Okinawa, where several high-profile sexual assaults on locals have prompted many residents to call for their relocation.
On Thursday, Japan lodged a protest with U.S. Amb. Caroline Kennedy after a 32-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of dumping a body.
On Friday the suspect, a former U.S. marine who is now a civilian employee at the Kadena Air Base, admitted to strangling her, citing investigative sources.
The local police discovered the woman’s body in the northern part of the island on Thursday after his confession.
It said the arrest came less than a week before Obama arrived in Japan to attend the final G7 summit meeting of his presidency in the coastal city of Shima.
He would also visit the western city of Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb in the closing days of World War II. (dpa/NAN)