US Marine arrested on suspicion of murder in Okinawa

A US marine stationed on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa is accused of murdering a Japanese woman and has been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said on Sunday.

The suspect allegedly “killed [a] 39-year-old woman at a hotel in Naha and stole her wallet” as well as her backpack, local police told news media outlets.

Citing police, NBC News reported that the suspect charged in the case was identified Lance Cpl Devin Jacob Ballard, 20. Anna Yagi was identified as the victim.

Ballard denied the allegations, police said, according to NBC.

Crimes including rapes, assaults, hit-and-run and drunk-driving accidents by US personnel have long sparked protests on Okinawa. The island bears a disproportionate burden of hosting about 70% of US military facilities in Japan.

US ambassador George Glass posted on social media that he had spoken with Japan’s foreign ministry and Okinawa’s governor, offering “sincere condolences to the victim’s family” and pledging cooperation into the investigation of her death.

The Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, said Japan had lodged a protest with US authorities and called the crime “exceptionally brutal and vicious”.

The government has urged the US “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,” Takaichi said.

Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media outlets, citing investigation sources, reported that CCTV footage from near the scene showed a foreign man entering a room with a woman and later leaving with her belongings.

Police then found a 20-year-old man who matched the description of the suspect seen in the footage and asked him to accompany them voluntarily to a local police station where he was arrested, NHK reported.

“We have lost a family member and are deeply saddened,” Yagi’s brother said through local police, according to the Asahi Shimbun daily newspaper. “My parents, in particular, are utterly devastated at the loss of their daughter.”

The US has about 54,000 military personnel stationed in Japan, mostly on Okinawa.

Crimes committed by US personnel in Japan have been a thorn in relations between the close security allies.

“Incidents and accidents involving US military personnel cause great anxiety among the local community and must not be allowed to happen,” Japan’s defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi said.

In June 2025, a Japanese court sentenced US marine Jamel Clayton – then 22 – to seven years in prison after being convicted of choking and sexually assaulting a woman in her 20s.

Earlier, in 2017, former US marine and civilian military base worker Kenneth Shinzato was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a local woman in Okinawa.

The same year, US forces in Japan banned all personnel from consuming alcohol after an intoxicated American marine crashed his vehicle into a mini-truck, killing its 61-year-old local driver.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, about 6,000 US military personnel have been arrested since Okinawa was returned to Japan from the US in 1972 after the second world war.

The number of arrests in a year hit 80 in 2024, the highest in 20 years.