Ex-US Marine denies intent to kill Okinawa woman in 2016

November 16, 2017

Naha, Okinawa Pref.- A former US Marine told a Japanese court on Thursday that he did not intend to kill a woman in Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture, in April 2016, but admitted that his attempt to rape the woman, then 20, resulted in her death.

Kenneth Shinzato, 33, who was a civilian worker at a US military base in the southern Japan prefecture at the time, pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, during the first court hearing in his trial at Naha District Court.

Shinzato insisted that he had planned to take her into a hotel and release her after achieving his sexual aim, but he was panicked since she did not faint as he had expected.

The defense indicated its readiness to dispute the murder accusation, while admitting charges of attempted rape resulting in the woman's death and abandonment of her body.

The local court is set to give a ruling on the case on Dec. 1. On Friday, the victim's family will attend the trial.

According to the indictment, Shinzato allegedly hit the woman in the head with a rod and stabbed her around the neck several times with a knife as he attempted to sexually assault her on a street in the city of Uruma at around 10 p.m. on April 28, 2016.

He is suspected to have dumped her body in a forest in the neighboring village of Onna.

At the court hearing on Thursday, the prosecution argued that Shinzato had intent to kill the woman as he choked her with his hands and knifed the victim in the neck.

The defense claimed that he did not stab her at the scene of assault and that she may have died after being knocked in the head while being taken into the grass.

The woman, then a corporate employee, went missing after telling her boyfriend that she would go walking.

The Okinawa prefectural police questioned Shinzato on a voluntary basis in May 2016 and, in line with his statement, discovered the victim's body.

The incident triggered fierce protests in the prefecture, which hosts the bulk of U.S. bases in Japan. In June that year, a major protest rally was held in the prefectural capital of Naha, joined by 65,000 people including Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, according to its organizers.

The defense has asked the Supreme Court to move the trial venue to Tokyo District Court, insisting that it could be difficult to ensure fairness at the Okinawa court, given widespread prejudice among the people of Okinawa against the accused. The top court has rejected the request. Jiji Press