Portal:Japan/Selected article/14
The Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident was an attempted indecent assault by U.S. Marine Corps Major Michael Brown on a Filipina bartender, V. N., in Okinawa, Japan on November 2, 2002. The case received extensive attention in the Japanese media, especially on Okinawa, and the crime sparked a public debate over the U.S. military presence in Japan, the fairness of the Japanese legal system, and the practices of the Japanese police. The case involved the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan and the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Japan and the United States. On July 8, 2004, after a 19-month trial, Brown was convicted by a Japanese court of attempted indecent assault and destruction of private property and received a one-year suspended prison sentence. Based on this incident and others involving crimes committed by U.S. military personnel in Japan, both countries entered into negotiations aimed at modifying the SOFA in July 2003; however, as of 2007, no changes had been made. Early in the morning of November 2, 2002, a female employee of the Camp Courtney officers' club on Okinawa drove up to the Courtney main gate and reported to base security personnel that a Marine Corps major had just attempted to sexually assault her in her car on a deserted road near the back gate of the base. She stated that during the assault the major threw her mobile phone into the nearby Tengan River. (Full article...)