Report: U.S. sailor charged in cabbie killing

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TOKYO (AP) — Prosecutors charged a U.S. sailor Thursday in the stabbing death of a taxi driver, one of a series of alleged crimes by American service members that has stirred anger in Japan.

Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a 22-year-old Nigerian citizen serving in the U.S. Navy, was charged with stabbing the driver to death near a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, on March 19, the court said in a short statement.

The killing followed a string of accusations against American servicemen in Japan, stoking criticism of the 50,000 U.S. troops in the country and calls for tougher military anti-crime measures.

Separately Thursday, Japanese prosecutors filed an indictment against a U.S. military policeman on the southern island of Okinawa on charges of assault and theft in an attack on a taxi driver in March, Kyodo News agency reported. The U.S. military handed the officer to Japanese authorities in line with the Japan-U.S. Status of the Forces Agreement, Kyodo said.

The sailor in Yokosuka on Thursday two charges: one of robbery and murder, and one of illegal possession of a weapon. Japanese police have said that he confessed to the crime.

The Yokohama District Court said the sailor faces a maximum sentence of death by hanging if convicted.

The suspect had been apprehended initially by U.S. Navy authorities in Tokyo on an earlier desertion charge, and then handed over Japanese authorities.

U.S. Navy and Japanese authorities had questioned the sailor about the killing because a credit card in his name was allegedly found in the victim's car.

Japanese anger over the U.S. military presence has grown in recent months following an alleged rape in February of a 14-year-old girl by a U.S. Marine on Okinawa.

Japanese prosecutors dropped charges against the Marine and released him after the girl withdrew her complaint, but the U.S. military is continuing its own investigation.

Earlier in Yokosuka, a Japanese court convicted a U.S. sailor of robbing and fatally beating a 56-year-old Japanese woman in 2006 and sentenced him to life in prison.


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