CNN.com 07 Marzo 2008

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- The U.S. military plans to court-martial four Marines accused of raping a 19-year-old Japanese woman in Hiroshima last year, a military spokesman said on Thursday.

The first of the courts-martial will begin in April, with the second scheduled to start in May. The remaining two have not been put on the docket.

The military has filed charges against Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell, 25; Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean, 20; Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, 39; and Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor, 34; said Master Gunnery Sgt. John Cordero.

The four men allegedly attacked and raped the woman in a car in a parking lot near the restaurant where they met her on October 14, local media in Hiroshima reported. Japanese authorities investigated the incident but decided in November not to file charges.

The case mirrors one on the southern island of Okinawa, where a U.S. Marine, 38-year-old Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl. He was released from Japanese custody on Friday after she withdrew her allegations.

Even so, the case has sparked outrage, and the U.S. Marine Corps is conducting its own investigation into whether Hadnott violated codes of military justice.

More than 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, most of them on Okinawa.

The U.S. military presence has bred resentment among locals, who have long complained of crime, noise and accidents.

Two years ago, a U.S. civilian military employee was jailed for nine years for raping two women.

In 1995, anti-U.S. sentiments boiled over after three U.S. servicemen kidnapped and gang-raped a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl


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