US Contractor Charged With Rape, Murder of Okinawa Woman

The incident has sparked fresh anger and mass protests by locals on the Japanese Island

An American contractor at a military base on Okinawa was charged Thursday with murdering a local woman — a case that has inflamed anti-American anger on the Japanese island, NBC News reported.

Kenneth Shinzato is accused of stabbing the 20-year-old victim multiple times in the neck in April, according to indictment documents seen by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.

Local reports, quoting anonymous sources, said the retired marine was working as a contractor in IT services before the alleged crime, the Associate Press reported.

The incident has sparked fresh anger and mass protests by locals, flared in the past over a high crime rate linked to American troops. Okinawa has been home to U.S. military bases since the end of World War II.

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