TOKYO – The U.S. Navy is investigating whether an American sailor was involved in the slaying of a 56-year-old Japanese woman, police and diplomatic sources said Thursday, putting the spotlight once again on Japan’s uncomfortable relationship with the large U.S. military presence on its soil.
Yoshie Sato was found dead shortly after 6:30 a.m. Tuesday in the entrance to a commercial building in Yokosuka City, a port 43 miles south of Tokyo and home to the largest American naval base outside the U.S. She had been beaten and died from internal bleeding, according to Japanese police, who said her empty wallet found nearby suggested robbery was the motive.
Security camera footage showed Sato leaving her condominium alone and then, shortly afterward, in the company of a man local police sources described as a “foreigner.”
Japanese media and others familiar with the investigation said the sailor, reported to be in his 20s and on his first naval assignment with the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, confessed to the crime, though no charges have been filed.
“A U.S. Navy sailor is a possible suspect in the case,” said Cmdr. John Wallach, head of public affairs for the U.S. Seventh Fleet at Yokosuka. “The investigation will move pretty quickly.”
The Navy was eager to signal its cooperation with Japanese authorities, saying that it “continues to cooperate fully with and support Japanese law enforcement officials in this case.”
Sato’s death has the potential to inflame feelings here against the approximately 47,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan, along with about 14,000 sailors with the U.S. Seventh Fleet who spend about half the year in port at Yokosuka. Tokyo is under intense domestic pressure to close U.S. bases subsidized by Japanese taxpayers.
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