A 20-year-old US Marine stationed on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa was arrested on suspicion of the murder of a Japanese woman, police said on Sunday.

The suspect “killed the 39-year-old woman at a hotel in Naha and stole her wallet on Saturday,” a local police spokesman told AFP.

US Ambassador George Glass posted on social media that he had spoken with Japan’s foreign ministry and Okinawa’s governor to offer “our sincere condolences and pledging full cooperation as the investigation continues”.

Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media outlets, citing investigation sources, reported that CCTV footage from near the scene showed a foreign man entering a room with a woman and later leaving with her belongings.

Police then found the 20-year-old man, who matched the description of the suspect seen in the footage, and asked him to accompany them voluntarily to a local police station where he was arrested, NHK reported.

He reportedly denied the charges.

The United States has around 54,000 military personnel stationed in Japan, mostly on Okinawa.

A series of crimes including rapes, assaults, hit-and-run and drink-driving accidents by US personnel have long sparked protests on Okinawa and have been a frequent irritant in relations between close security allies Japan and the US.

By Agencies