September 28, 2024

The Yokohama District Court Yokosuka Branch on September 26 sentenced a U.S. soldier stationed at the U.S. Yokosuka Naval Base to 28 months in prison with hard labor, suspended for four years, for physically assaulting and injuring four people.

The 31-year-old U.S. soldier, Daniel Krieger, had been accused of randomly attacking four passersby, resulting in injuries, on a road in Kanagawa’s Zushi City in July 2022.

At a rally held after the ruling, a 60-year-old woman, one of the four victims, criticized the soldier for not offering an apology to the victims.

Lawyer Goto Masahiko, a member of the victims’ counsel, said that it is totally disappointing that the court handed down a suspended sentence despite the fact that the defendant made no apology to the victims. He demanded that the soldier offer a sincere apology to the victims without delay and compensate them for damages. He also demanded that Japanese criminal procedure rules be strictly applied to U.S. military personnel as is done to Japanese citizens and that the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement be revised.