THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070436
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: NAHA, OKINAWA LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Three American servicemen were convicted by a Japanese court this morning in the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl, a crime that unleashed a public fury against the presence of American military bases in Japan.
The verdict, handed down by a panel of three judges at the Naha District Court, followed six months of protests against the U.S. presence. Support for American troops on Okinawa is at one of its lowest points since World War II.
None of the three U.S. GIs - Navy Seaman Marcus Gill of Woodville, Texas; Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp of Griffin, Ga.; and Marine Pfc. Kendrick Ledet of Waycross, Ga. - showed any emotion when the sentences were read.
Gill and Harp were sentenced to seven years and Ledet received 6 1/2 years. The men have 14 days to appeal and are expected to do so.
The sentences, tough by Japanese standards, will be served in Yokosuka prison, just south of Tokyo.
The U.S. military will begin the process of discharging the men for ``other than honorable reasons,'' though the discharges will not take effect until the prison terms end.
All three had confessed to some role in the crime. On the trial's opening day, Gill said that he raped the girl, while Ledet and Harp said they helped abduct her, but only because Gill bullied them into joining him.
The court, however, said Harp's testimony was ``untrustworthy,'' and he therefore was given the same sentence as Gill.
In a statement, the judges said the crime was carried out ``systematically,'' violated the victim's human dignity and caused her extreme physical and psychological harm.
The U.S. Embassy in a statement refused to comment on the ruling and said an American military observer was present at all the proceedings and reported no problems contrary to U.S. or Japanese judicial practices.
``Japan is a nation under the rule of law, just as the United States is a nation under the rule law,'' the statement said. ``We respect each other's legal processes.''
Prosecutors said the three forced the girl into their rented car on the night of Sept. 4 as she left a stationery shop after buying a school notebook. They allegedly beat and bound her as Gill drove to a deserted road amid fields of sugar cane.
The girl was raped there, and abandoned. Still bleeding, she wandered to the nearest house and tearfully called home. Gill, Ledet and Harp were arrested by military police two days later.
Emotions ran high during the trial. In the trial's first session last November, the victim's father said he wished he could kill the three Americans. Later, an interpreter broke down in tears as she rendered into Japanese Gill's graphic account of the rape.
Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota, a longstanding opponent of the U.S. bases, has called for the 27,000 U.S. troops' removal by 2015. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The Associated Press and The New
York Times.
ILLUSTRATION: Gill
Ledet
Harp
KEYWORDS: MARINES OKINAWA RAPE TRIAL VERDICT CONVICTION by CNB