Devin Jacob Ballard, leaves the Naha Police Station to be referred to the district prosecutor's office in Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, on October 5, 2026.
Koichi Nagano/The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP
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Japanese prosecutors have indicted a US Marine on suspicion of murdering and robbing a woman in Okinawa earlier this month, multiple Japanese media outlets have reported, in a case that has prompted renewed outrage over the conduct of US troops in the country.

Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard, a 20-year-old Marine assigned to the III Marine Expeditionary Force at Futenma Air Station, is charged with killing a woman by strangling her with a phone cord at a hotel in Naha, Okinawa’s capital, and stealing her backpack containing a wallet, public broadcaster NHK and others, reported on Sunday.