A United States marine was sentenced on Monday to 40 years in prison for raping a Filipino woman. The keenly watched trial had sparked widespread anger at the United States’s military presence in the Philippines.
In the nationally televised ruling, the judge, Benjamin Pozon, acquitted three other marines and their Filipino driver of complicity, but found Lance Corporal Daniel Smith guilty of raping the drunk woman in November last year.
The woman, a 23-year-old Filipino who was identified only as ”Nicole”, said Smith assaulted her inside a van travelling on the former site of the US navy’s Subic Bay base while his three colleagues shouted encouragement.
Smith (21) who insisted that the woman had consented to sex, became the first US soldier to be convicted of a crime since the Philippine senate voted to close down US bases in the early 1990s.
The two countries have conducted joint training exercises since 1998 under a visiting forces agreement that critics say gives too much protection to US troops accused of committing crimes. – Guardian Unlimited Â