Another member of the US military is under some suspicion of a major crime in Japan. This time, a cab driver was murdered and a credit card belonging to an AWOL sailer was discovered in the cab.

When I first heard this Friday night, I thought not again. As of yet, he has not been charged with the crime. (The US has found him and took him into custody.)

I, like many non-Japanese (and some Japanese) who have lived here for a while, tend to be sensitive to these types of things as we know that the media and politicians will sensationalize it and imply that foreigners have some kind of criminal tendencies. In this case, I thought that it was very convenient to find a credit card belonging to someone in the U.S. military. It proves nothing at all by itself. It may no more than show that this guy forgot or lost his card in the cab. In cases like this, I can appreciate SOFA.

We don't know if the guy is connected or not. I hope not, though to the murdered cab driver it won't make much difference. The best we can hope for him and his family and society (Japanese and non-Japanese in Japan) is that the real killer is caught and punished.

But there are a lot of questions. MTC of the political blog Shisaku ponders some of them here and here.