Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni is home to Marine Aicraft Group 12, Carrier Air Wing 5 and other tenant commands near Hiroshima, Japan. (Stars and Stripes)
CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Japanese police in three prefectures withheld information on cases involving five people connected to the U.S. military and suspected of sexual offenses since 2021, officials told Stars and Stripes on Friday.
Police in Kanagawa, Aomori and Yamaguchi prefectures, where a total of four U.S. bases are located, did not publicly release information about those allegations or alert their local governments to them, according to prefectural and city offices that manage relations with the U.S. military.
None of the suspects appear to have been charged with crimes. None of their service affiliations or duty stations were disclosed by police spokespeople in any of the five incidents.
The incidents, first reported Thursday by Kyodo News, surfaced after the Okinawa prefectural government complained this month that local police and prosecutors withheld information on two service members indicted on alleged sex offenses since December.
Information about three other service members suspected of sexual offenses since February 2023 on Okinawa surfaced because of those complaints. None of the three was charged with a crime, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on July 3.
Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Wright, spokesman for U.S. Forces Japan, declined to comment on the individual cases but said USFJ takes all investigations seriously.
“USFJ has consistently adhered to agreed practices and standing bilateral agreements, working closely with the Government of Japan in the reporting of serious incidents and accidents,” he told Stars and Stripes by email Friday evening.
Prefectural police in Yamaguchi, where Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni is located, referred “a person linked to the U.S. military” to prosecutors in 2022 on suspicion of forcible indecency, a police spokesman said by phone Friday.
Police did not report the referral publicly after considering “public interest and protection of the privacy of the victims,” he said.
That suspect was not charged, a spokesman for the Yamaguchi District Public Prosecutor’s Office said by phone Friday.
The police spokesman declined to comment on whether Japan’s Defense and Foreign ministries were notified.
The city of Iwakuni’s Base Countermeasures Division had not been notified of the case as of Friday, the division spokesman said.
Some Japanese government officials are required to speak to the media on condition of anonymity.
In Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo, a U.S. service member was referred to prosecutors on suspicion of sexually assaulting and injuring a person in 2022.
A U.S. civilian employee was arrested this year for allegedly committing an act of indecency without consent, a spokesman for Kanagawa’s Military Base Affairs Division said by phone Friday. Yokosuka Naval Base and Naval Air Facility Atsugi are in the prefecture.
Neither person was charged with a crime, Kyodo reported Thursday.
Police notified the base affairs division Thursday of the cases, which they had not previously disclosed for privacy reasons, the division spokesman said.
Aomori Prefectural Police in 2021 and 2022 referred two people affiliated with the U.S. military to prosecutors on suspicion of rape and forcible indecency, respectively, according to a police spokesman. Misawa Air Base is in Aomori prefecture.
“We consider the privacy, effects on the investigation and other aspects for each case to decide whether to publicly release the information,” he said by phone Friday.
The spokesman declined to comment whether the government ordered police to release the information.
Prosecutors decided in September 2021 and February 2022 not to indict the two, a spokesman for the Aomori District Public Prosecutors Office said by phone Friday.
The prefecture’s Disaster Prevention and Crisis Management Division said the prefecture was not informed of those cases, a division spokesman said by phone Friday.
On Okinawa, prosecutors dropped a case involving a U.S. Marine who was arrested July 4 for allegedly touching a woman’s breast, a spokesman for the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office said by phone Friday.
