Japan Press Weekly

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2013 June 19 - 25 [US FORCES]

62 of 129 US military felons freed in Japan

Japanese Police were able to arrest only half of the 129 U.S. servicemen and U.S. military-attached civilian employees who committed such crimes as murder, rape, robbery, and arson in Japan between 1996 and 2012, due to Japan-U.S. secret deals.

According to the materials Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Kasai Akira obtained from the National Police Agency, Japanese police authorities detained 62 out of 129 suspects for felony crimes. In cases of rape alone, the number of rapists actually arrested totaled only nine out of 41 alleged rapists during the same period of time.

The present Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) enables the U.S. side to keep suspects in custody as long as they flee onto U.S. bases after committing crimes until Japan indicts them on specific charges.

Under the 1952 SOFA, jurisdiction of crimes committed by U.S. personnel resided with the U.S. side. Later, the primary right of jurisdiction over “off-duty” crimes was transferred to Japan. Yet, the U.S. continued to have jurisdiction over so-called “on-duty” offenses (September 1953).

Apart from this cosmetic revision of the SOFA, the two sides exchanged secret memoranda. Japan promised to renounce its criminal jurisdiction over all crimes other than extremely excessive crimes (October 28, 1953). Furthermore, the Justice Ministry’s official at that time said to the U.S. counterpart that “there will not be many cases in which the custody of such offenders will be retained by the Japanese authorities” (October 22, 1953).

The police materials Kasai obtained show that these secret agreements are still in force.