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U.S. servicemen convicted
Courtroom in Okinawa rape

Sentences lighter than expected

March 7, 1996
Web posted at: 12:45 a.m. EST (0545 GMT)

NAHA, Okinawa (CNN) -- Three U.S. servicemen were convicted Thursday in the kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa girl and sentenced to up to seven years in a Japanese prison.

The verdict handed down by a panel of three judges -- Japan does not have a jury system -- followed months of protests against the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. In the aftermath of the crime, support for American troops in Japan has reached one of its lowest points since World War II.

The sentence was lighter than expected; prosecutors had urged the judges to return 10-year sentences against all three, arguing that the girl was kidnapped, beaten, brutally raped, and then abandoned.



Gill Harp Ledet

Navy Seaman Marcus Gill, 23, of Woodville, Texas; and Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp, 23, of Griffin, Georgia, each received seven-year prison sentences for the September 4 abduction and rape of the girl. Marine Pfc. Kendrick Ledet, 20, of Waycross, Georgia, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison. None of the three showed emotion when the sentences were read.

Judges say crime was systematic

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.

All three defendants 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 had been bullied by Gill into abducting the girl and that they did not participate in the rape itself. . While passing sentence, Chief Judge Shinei Nagamine said Ledet received a lighter sentence because he did not actually have intercourse with the girl.

"He tried to have sexual intercourse but was unable to because he realized she was so young," Nagamine said.

The court, however, said Harp's testimony was "untrustworthy," and he therefore was given the same sentence as Gill.

About a dozen red-stenciled anti-U.S. base signs hung outside the court Thursday, some reading "American Animals Get Out" in English.

An emotional time

Emotions have run high during the trial, both inside and outside the courtroom.

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In the trial's first session in November, the victim's father said he wished he could kill the three Americans himself. Later, the interpreter broke down in tears as she rendered into Japanese Gill's graphic account of the rape.

Even as testimony was being heard, record numbers of Okinawans took to the streets, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the 27,000 American troops on the island.

There are other reasons for the Okinawans' anger: They earn about half the wages of workers in the rest of Japan and unemployment is twice as high.

But U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry stressed that American troops have an important role to play in Okinawa.

"The presence of U.S. troops in both Japan and Korea is crucial, in my judgment, to maintaining security and stability in the Pacific," he said. "It's not just a matter of protecting Japan and Korea. Not just a matter of protecting U.S. interests. It's maintaining security and stability in the whole region."

Ota

Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota, a longtime opponent of the U.S. bases, has called for the troops' removal by 2015, and his government has drawn up detailed plans for the departure.

"Some American troops still believe Okinawa is U.S. territory," he said in an interview earlier this week. "Okinawa is ours, not yours."

In a sense, much of the island has been off-limits to its 1.2 million resident Okinawans. Although Okinawa accounts for less than 1 percent of Japan's total area, one-fifth of the island is taken up by U.S. bases that house more than half of the 45,000 American troops stationed in Japan.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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