Victim or criminal? Why a US navy officer has been imprisoned in Japan

Tomoko Ichihara’s family was wrapping up a birthday lunch near Mount Fuji when celebration turned to horror. A silver Toyota drifted across a road and careened into the parking lot of a noodle restaurant, crushing Ichihara’s brother-in-law and mother between cars and leaving them with fatal injuries. The minivan’s driver, a US Navy lieutenant, would eventually be sentenced to three years in a Japanese prison. To his supporters, the officer, Ridge Alkonis, is a model sailor who was singled out for harsh treatment by a foreign legal system after a crash they say he could not have prevented. His wife has called the sentence a miscarriage of justice and campaigned for his release, pleading her case to President Joe Biden this month in a brief exchange after his State of the Union address.

In Japan, however, Alkonis is widely viewed as a criminal rightly imprisoned for taking two innocent lives.

A court found he had been negligent by falling into a “state of drowsiness” at the wheel, rejecting his assertion that he had lost consciousness while suffering from altitude sickness. His sentence, despite claims by his backers, was in line with penalties given to Japanese defendants in similar cases resulting in multiple deaths, experts say. Alkonis, 34, struggled to navigate Japanese customs and legal bureaucracy after the crash. He pleaded guilty to negligent driving in hopes of receiving a suspended sentence. He wrote letters of apology and paid the bereaved families about $1.6 million, through insurance money and cash from himself and friends. But sentencing decisions in Japan put significant weight on the wishes of victims’ relatives, and in this case they asked the judge to render a “severe penalty,” calling Alkonis’ actions after the crash insufficient and saying he had not fully acknowledged the seriousness of his crime. While US lawmakers have said that Alkonis was denied due process, the Status of Forces Agreement governing the 55,000 US troops in Japan does not shield them from the Japanese legal system or give them a right to a lawyer during questioning. “I am not saying the Japanese justice system has no issues, but it’s just natural that suspects are not allowed to see lawyers,” said Takashi Shinobu, a political scientist at Nihon University in Japan. Alkonis’ supporters in Congress argue that he should be allowed to serve out his sentence in the United States. Some TV commentators have accused the US military of giving him only lukewarm support in hopes of preserving strong relations with Japan, where tensions over the large US military presence have flared at times after troops have been accused of crimes. Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, warned on Twitter this month that he would scrutinise security ties with Japan if the sailor was not on US soil by 28 February. The interventions have created a diplomatic distraction for two close allies that are increasingly working together to counter threats from China, Russia and North Korea. News reports about Alkonis swirled around a trip to Washington in January by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan. When the officer’s wife, Brittany Alkonis, 35, attended the State of the Union address at the invitation of a Republican congressman, Biden told her afterward that the United States would not give up on the case. “My kids are counting on you,” she replied. Japan’s justice and foreign affairs ministries declined to comment. The US Embassy in Tokyo said the State Department was working with the Pentagon to “provide all appropriate assistance.” Alkonis’ accident happened shortly after 1 pm on 29 May, 2021, as he was driving with his wife and their three children, now 5, 7 and 9. They were on their way to eat pizza and ice cream after visiting Mount Fuji. The lieutenant, who was stationed at the Yokosuka naval base south of Tokyo, “fell asleep” at the wheel, the US Navy said in an accident report obtained by The New York Times, and his Toyota left the road and slammed into five cars outside a restaurant. Seiko Sano, 85, and Takeshi Endo, 54, later died from their injuries. One of Sano’s daughters was injured and hospitalised for about a week. In court, Alkonis said he “should have immediately stopped my car” after he felt his arms momentarily go weak about five minutes before he crashed. He had also been quoted as saying during his interrogation that he felt “drowsy” before the accident — a word he later told his wife had been mistranslated in a statement he signed. At trial, he said he had been suffering from “acute mountain sickness” just before the accident, referring to a diagnosis he had received from a doctor. The judge said it was hard to believe that Alkonis had suddenly fallen unconscious because of mountain sickness, in part because he had driven to a lower elevation before the crash. Peter Bärtsch, a specialist in high-altitude illnesses at Heidelberg University in Germany, echoed the judge’s assessment in an interview, saying that a sudden loss of consciousness because of mountain sickness would not have been possible under the circumstances. Beyond the medical questions, the sentence also hinged on perceptions of how Alkonis had interacted with the victims’ families in the hours, days and weeks after the accident. He said at trial that he had done his best to help the victims at the scene. He also said that, in addition to the restitution payment — a custom in Japan — he had made efforts to apologise to the families, a statement supported by email correspondence that his wife provided to the Times. But the apology letters were “not accepted,” Alkonis said. Brittany Alkonis said in an interview that the Navy and her husband’s Japanese lawyer had told the family that the victims’ relatives had no interest in expressions of apology. “We really wanted to meet these people and have this healing moment where we say, ‘We’re so sorry for everything you’ve been through and we want to do what we can,’” she said. “But we were told, ‘That’s not appropriate.’”

The victims’ families asked the judge to sentence Alkonis to four-and-a-half years in prison.

Ichihara told the court she was sceptical that Alkonis “truly realises the gravity of the sin he committed.” She said that he had not done enough to help the two fatally injured people after the accident, and that his lawyer had not made contact with the victims’ families quickly enough. The families could not be reached for comment. Alkonis’ lawyer said he had not received his client’s permission to comment on the case. Alkonis, a Mormon who had previously worked as a missionary in Japan, began his three-year term in July after losing an appeal to have his sentence reduced. Mitigating circumstances, including compensation for bereaved families, typically help reduce sentences in Japanese courts, said Mamoru Shibata, a law professor at the Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science. “But in this case,” Shibata added, “what’s significant was the bereaved families’ strong wish to punish him.” Brittany Alkonis said she felt that the Navy had been overstating its support for her family in its communications with members of Congress. The Navy declined to respond to specific allegations, but a spokesperson, Cmdr Katharine Cerezo, said it had “provided and will continue to provide Lieutenant Alkonis and his family with all support consistent with US law and regulations.” “This was a tragic event,” she added, “and we recognise its impact on the families of everyone involved.” Mike Ives and Hisako Ueno, c.2023 The New York Times Company Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.