US military faces fresh scrutiny over alleged crimes in Okinawa amid long-standing tensions

TOKYO, 5 OCTOBER 2026 —

The murder of a Japanese woman allegedly committed by a United States Marine on the southern island of Okinawa has prompted a formal protest from Tokyo to Washington and renewed public anger over the concentration of American military forces in the prefecture.

The victim, identified by police as 39-year-old Anna Yagi, was found dead at a hotel in Naha, the prefectural capital, on Saturday. Police identified the suspect as Devin Jacob Ballard, a 20-year-old Marine assigned to the III Marine Expeditionary Force and based at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that security camera footage from near the scene showed a foreign man entering a room with a woman and later leaving alone with her belongings. The suspect has reportedly denied the allegations. He is currently in Japanese custody.

About 100 people participated in a rally in Naha on Sunday as news of the killing spread.

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said incidents and accidents involving US military personnel “cause great anxiety among the local community and must not be allowed to happen.” Prime Minister Takaichi called the crime “exceptionally brutal and vicious” and said the government had urged the United States “to provide maximum cooperation with the investigation, enforce stricter discipline among US military personnel, and take thorough measures to prevent the recurrence of similar crimes.”

The United States maintains about 54,000 military personnel in Japan under a bilateral security treaty and a Status of Forces Agreement first signed in 1951 and revised in 1960. Okinawa, which accounts for 1 percent of Japan’s population and less than 1 percent of its land area, hosts about 70 percent of the US military facilities in the country.

Under the SOFA, Japan has the “primary right to exercise jurisdiction” for crimes committed off-base while US personnel are not on duty, while the United States retains the primary right for crimes committed on base or while on duty.

Tokyo and Washington view Okinawa as critical to deterring potential military aggression from China. “The US and the Japanese governments have always cited ‘geopolitical’ importance of the location of the archipelago to justify not only the presence itself but also the disproportionately high concentration of the US military there,” said Kozue Akibayashi, a professor of gender and peace studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto.

“However, in reality, it was convenient for the Japanese government to keep the larger number of US troops and military facilities in Okinawa that nobody wants.”

Okinawa was an independent trading nation known as the Ryukyu Kingdom before Japan annexed it in 1879. The United States held the islands, which lie 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Taiwan at their closest point, from the end of World War II until 1972.

“Many US military bases located on the main islands of Japan were transferred to the islands of Okinawa … because the mainland Japanese people had started to protest the presence of the US military in their neighbourhood,” Akibayashi said.

She added that Okinawa’s political voice “does not seem to bear significance to the Japanese government” and that the prefecture “was colonised by Japan in the late 19th century and has always been a subject of discrimination within Japan.”

The presence of US Marines has repeatedly stirred resentment among residents over noise, aircraft crashes and the conduct of personnel. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, about 6,000 US military personnel have been arrested since 1972, when the US returned control of Okinawa to Japan. In 2024, the number of arrests hit 80, the highest in 20 years.

Last year, a Japanese court sentenced a US Marine accused of choking and attempting to rape a woman in her 20s to seven years in prison. In 2017, a former US Marine and civilian base worker was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a local woman. The same year, an intoxicated Marine crashed his vehicle into a mini-truck, killing its 61-year-old driver.

In 1995, the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three US servicemen triggered mass protests.

Akibayashi said people in Okinawa have been outraged by these crimes, which they see as violations of their basic human rights. “Their lives and even survival have been made insecure and threatened by the US military presence,” she said. “They have expressed countless times their opposition to and anger at the US military presence, and unequal burden of ‘security’ policies imposed on them throughout the decades.

Their protests have been ignored and nullified.” She added that when crimes are committed, “the US government and the military always say they would address the issue or promise tighter discipline.”

The US Embassy and the Marine Corps expressed condolences over the incident and said they were cooperating with Japanese authorities. “The Marine Corps takes these allegations very seriously and expects every Marine to adhere to the highest standards of behavior,” the service said in a statement.

US Ambassador George Glass posted on social media that he had spoken with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Okinawa’s governor, offering “our sincere condolences and pledging full cooperation as the investigation continues.”