A US soldier slapped a Japanese teenage boy in Okinawa, prompting the foreign ministry to summon the US ambassador.
A US soldier slapped a Japanese teenage boy in Okinawa, prompting the foreign ministry to summon the US ambassador.
Ambassador John Roos appeared in front of television cameras pledging full US co-operation after police said a drunken serviceman broke a curfew and hit a 13-year-old in a private home.
"Let me be absolutely clear. I am very upset, it's an understatement to say I am very upset with the reported incident in Okinawa," Roos told reporters after being summoned to the Japanese foreign ministry in Tokyo.
A 24-year-old serviceman got in to an apartment above the village pub where he had been drinking and slapped a teenage boy, Okinawa police and reports said.
He kicked and destroyed a television before jumping out the home's third-floor window, they said.
The soldier, who y became violent at the bar before the incident early Friday morning, sustained injuries and was taken to a US military hospital, they said.
"Police are investigating the case, in which the man could be charged for trespassing, injury and destruction of property," said a local police spokesman.
"But the man is still in a US military hospital," he said, adding police will demand that he is transferred to their custody.
Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba described Friday’s incident as "inexcusable", and said "it is outrageous that he went out at all" in the light of the curfew.
Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto said the purported crime was "absolutely unacceptable".
Less than three weeks ago a teary-eyed Roos told Okinawans he shared their "anger" after two US servicemen were arrested over the alleged rape of a local woman on the island.
That incident led to a nationwide nighttime curfew for all service personnel in the country as US authorities moved swiftly to try to neutralize a potentially explosive issue.
Okinawans, the reluctant hosts to more than half of the 47,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen stationed in Japan, are angry about the huge US presence on their semi-tropical island chain.
