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Agence France-Presse

A Japanese court sentenced a US marine to seven years in prison, the judiciary said in a statement on Wednesday, in the latest sexual assault case involving American military personnel in the country.
James Clayton, 22, who pleaded not guilty, was accused of choking and attempting to rape a woman in her twenties last year in Okinawa, according to Kyodo News and other local media.
The Naha District Court on Tuesday sentenced Clayton to seven years in jail for “the crime of causing injury by attempting to have non-consensual sexual intercourse”, a spokesman for the court said.
Presiding judge Kazuhiko Obata described Clayton’s behaviour as “so dangerous that it could have threatened her life, and highly malicious”, Jiji Press reported.
Prosecutors had sought a 10-year prison term.

Clayton’s lawyers argued that he had not used physical force against the woman but “only hugged her and left”, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported.
The defence is considering appealing the ruling, the reports said, citing Clayton’s lawyer.
Relations between the US military personnel stationed in Okinawa and the local community have long been fraught.
Last year, 80 people connected to the US military were charged with various crimes committed on the subtropical Japanese island.
This included eight serious cases, such as robbery and non-consensual sexual acts, according to police. The number is reportedly the highest in 30 years.
The 1995 gang-rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US soldiers prompted calls for a rethink of the 1960 pact allowing the United States to station its troops in Japan.
Okinawa, where one of the fiercest battles of World War II was fought 80 years ago and under US occupation until 1972, remains home to the majority of about 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan under a bilateral security pact. The island, which accounts for only 0.6 per cent of Japanese land, hosts 70 per cent of U.S. military facilities.
Frustration runs high on Okinawa because of its continued burden with the heavy US presence that includes noise, pollution, aircraft accidents and crime related to American troops.


Defence Minister Gen Nakatani, who attended Monday’s 80th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa, raised concerns about recent sexual assault cases involving US service members when he met with Lieutenant General Roger Turner, the commander of III Marine Expeditionary Force, requesting discipline and preventive measures.
There has been growing calls for a revision to the Status of Forces Agreement that gives the US the right to investigate most accidents and crimes that occur on Japanese soil.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s cabinet on Tuesday adopted a statement showing that the Japanese prosecutors dropped criminal cases against more than 300 US service members in the last decade between 2014 and 2024, including a sexual assault case in Okinawa in 2020.
Additional reporting by Associated Press


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James Clayton, 22, was sentenced to seven years in prison for attempting to rape a woman in Okinawa


James Clayton, 22, was sentenced to seven years in prison for attempting to rape a woman in Okinawa.


US marine’s ‘hugged her’ defence fails as Japan jails him for sexual assault

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}James Clayton, 22, was sentenced to seven years in prison for attempting to rape a woman in Okinawa

James Clayton, 22, was sentenced to seven years in prison for attempting to rape a woman in Okinawa