A U.S. civilian whom police say they suspect of committing rape in Chatan, Okinawa, remains in their custody after an Okinawa court Tuesday granted his prosecutors’ request to keep him jailed 10 more days while officials investigate whether to indict him.
Dag Allen Thompson, 34, a car salesman for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service on Kadena Air Base, is accused of raping a Japanese woman in her 20s after allegedly entering the woman’s home through an unlocked door Aug. 22.
Thompson has denied the accusation, police have said.
He has been detained since he was identified as a suspect and taken into police custody at his home in Naha’s Nakaima district on Oct. 15.
A Naha District Public Prosecutor’s Office spokesman said Wednesday that the Naha District Court granted the office’s request to continue jailing Thompson until Nov. 5. The office has until that day to decide whether to formally charge him with the crime.
Under Japanese criminal procedures, a suspect can be detained for 10 days while law enforcement officials investigate whether to indict him. If prosecutors ask and a judge agrees, the suspect can be detained for an additional 10 days.
According to the police report, the woman told police in August she was raped at 1:50 a.m., while sleeping at home, by a stranger who entered through the front door she’d left unlocked for a family member.
The Chatan woman told police she saw the face of her attacker from the light on her cellular phone, which happened to ring then.
Thompson later was identified from a composite sketch police drew from her descriptions. Police said the car salesman, who is married, is a former Marine assigned to Camp Kinser until 1994. He returned to Okinawa in 1998 after he left the service.
