Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 8, 1995 TAG: 9511080077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ERIC TALMADGE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NAHA, JAPAN LENGTH: Medium
The three U.S. servicemen spotted the 12-year-old schoolgirl as she stood outside a stationery store where she had gone to buy a notebook.
According to prosecutors, the men grabbed her, shoved her into a car and bound her with tape that they had bought, along with condoms, at a grocery store on a U.S. airbase. Then, they drove her down a lonely road lined with fields of sugar cane.
Navy Seaman Marcus D. Gill calmly confessed Tuesday to raping the girl - a crime that has damaged America's security ties with its most important Pacific ally. Marine Pfcs. Rodrico Harp and Kendrick Ledet admitted to helping him.
The rape has prompted an outpouring of anger on Okinawa, where more than 26,000 U.S. troops, including the largest contingent of Marines outside of the United States, are stationed.
The uproar showed little sign of abating Tuesday as dozens of reporters and Okinawans filled the spartan Naha District Court chamber No. 201 for the opening of the trial.
Prosecutors gave a graphic account of the crime, saying it began on the afternoon of Sept. 4 when Gill, Harp and Ledet were out cruising in a rented car. The rape was Gill's idea, they said.
First the three men bought the condoms and tape at a grocery story on a U.S. airbase. For the next few hours, they drove around a nearby town in search of prey, prosecutors said.
Their search ended at about 8 p.m., when they noticed the girl, still dressed in her school uniform.
While Gill waited in the car, the prosecutors said, Harp approached her as though to ask directions, and before she could answer, Ledet grabbed her from behind.
Ledet and Harp allegedly shoved her into the car and bound her with the tape as Gill drove down a remote road. Gill confessed to raping the girl and then dumping her in a sugar cane field before returning to his base.
In pleading guilty to charges of confinement and rape resulting in injury, Gill, 22, of Woodville, Texas, could face life in prison in Japan.
Ledet, 20, of Waycross, Ga., and Harp, 21, of Griffin, Ga., face the same charges and are being tried with Gill. On Tuesday, they acknowledged their role in abducting the girl, but denied penetrating her.
``I did not rape her or beat her,'' Ledet told the court in a quiet, emotionless voice. Like the other defendants, he was in civilian clothes, and had been led into the room in handcuffs.
For the short walk from a detention center next to the courthouse, police used metal shields to screen the three from view.
Under Japanese law, a rape conviction is possible even if a defendant merely acted in concert with the rapist. So the two Marines' admissions that they participated in the plot and the abduction could be enough to secure a finding of guilt, although their sentences probably would be less severe.
Mitsunobu Matsunaga, Harp's lawyer, said Harp was coerced by U.S. military investigators into signing a confession saying that he had participated in the rape itself.
He said he would contest the credibility of the statement in the next trial session, scheduled for Dec. 4. Court sources said a final verdict for all three was possible before the end of the year - which would be unusually speedy for Japanese courts.
``As an Okinawan, I of course want to see Americans who do bad things brought to justice,'' Matsunaga said after Tuesday's session. ``But we have to keep our cool, and not forget the facts.''
In Atlanta on Tuesday, the parents of the three servicemen gathered at a news conference to proclaim their sons' innocence.
``I am more proud of him than ever because of the courage it has taken to admit to something that deep in your heart you know you did not do,'' said Ester Gill, the seaman's mother.
Gill's family said the Marine confessed in hopes that Japanese authorities would show him mercy.
``I've been coached, `forced by Japanese police,' into making statements'' that corroborated the victim's, Gill wrote in a letter released by the family.
Gill is married with two children; Harp is married with one child.
The case has focused a debate nationwide about treatment of U.S. troops accused of crimes in Japan. The three were arrested by U.S. military police Sept. 6 and initially held in U.S. custody. They were turned over to Japanese authorities after being indicted Sept. 29.
In response to the public outcry, the U.S. side agreed to turn some suspects over more quickly, on a case-by-case basis.
For many Okinawans, that's not enough.
Nearly 75 percent of those responding to a telephone survey conducted earlier this month by a local television station said they believe American troops should be completely withdrawn from the southern island.
by CNB