NAHA, Okinawa — The sister of the woman who identified an Exchange New Car Sales employee as her rapist testified Tuesday behind a screen that separated her from the man, Dag Alan Thompson, who is on trial here on two charges each of rape and burglary.

Her brief 10-minute testimony about when the bedsheets last had been washed was preceded by an hourlong argument concerning whether she should be spared having Thompson watch her while she testified.

She shares a Chatan home with her sister, who has told police she was raped on Aug. 22.

The prosecutor argued that Tuesday’s witness, who was not named in open court, would find it difficult to testify if she had to sit near Thompson and have him watch her.

Defense attorney Toshimitsu Takaesu countered that Thompson needed to see her to determine whether their paths ever had crossed.

Thompson’s accuser testified in March via closed-circuit television with the monitors turned away from Thompson and courtroom spectators.

His lawyer argued Tuesday that such right-to-privacy protection should not extend to other witnesses in the case.

Naha District Court Chief Judge Nobuyuki Yokota overruled him; six-foot-tall screens were used to separate the sister from Thompson, who sat on a bench between two guards, and from the public.

Thompson, 31, a former Marine married to an Okinawa woman, is accused of entering the 21-year-old woman’s home and raping her while she slept in her sister’s bed.

He also is accused of breaking into the home of a 27-year-old woman in Naha and raping her in June 1998.

Prosecutors contend DNA samples of semen obtained at both crime scenes match Thompson’s DNA.

Thompson was arrested on Oct. 15 after being identified from a police sketch. The Chatan woman said she had seen his face in the glow of her cell phone during his attack.

According to earlier police testimony, Thompson’s DNA matched semen found on the bedsheets. The woman’s sister testified Tuesday that the sheets last were washed about two weeks before the incident.

She added that her mother was visiting from Fukuoka at the time and she was certain no one had engaged in sexual activity in her bed during that period.

Takaesu declined to cross-examine the witness.

“The defendant could not see her nor hear her voice very well, or tell anything about her manner, so there is nothing to go on for us to cross-examine her,” he told the three-judge panel.

Earlier, Takaesu had told the panel Thompson needed to see the witness because friends had reported he may have had some contact with her in the past but did not know her by name.

Tuesday’s session was the seventh since Thompson was indicted.

He has been held in the Naha Detention Center since his arrest.

The next session is scheduled for May 17. The trial, conducting an average of two daylong sessions per month, is scheduled to last through July.