A crew member of the U.S. guided missile destroyer Curtis Wilbur was arrested Sunday on suspicion of hitting and injuring a bar employee, police said.
Petty Officer Second Class Charles Green, 21, was arrested around 6:30 a.m. He had allegedly punched the 29-year-old employee more than 10 times on a street in front of a bar in Nagasaki.
Green had a quarrel with a Japanese customer at the bar while he was drinking with a colleague. When Green and the Japanese man left the bar while quarreling, the bar worker tried to separate the two men, police said.
The 8,422-ton Curtis Wilbur has been docked at Nagasaki port, and crew members have been allowed to take shore leave from Thursday to Monday. The ship is capable of carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles as well as antiaircraft and antisubmarine missiles.
The Nagasaki prefectural and municipal governments had requested that the U.S. Navy refrain from having the U.S. destroyer enter the port. The request was ignored.
Protesters stage sit-in
NAGASAKI (Kyodo) About 80 people, including survivors of the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki, staged a sit-in for about one hour at Nagasaki Peace Park on Sunday. They were protesting the U.S. subcritical nuclear test conducted Friday.
"(The test) was an experiment for actual use of nuclear weapons and definitely not allowable," said 73-year-old Ayao Imada, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, who took part in the protest.
Protests were also held during the weekend in other cities, including Hiroshima. , which was the first city to be attacked with a nuclear bomb during World War II.
The U.S. conducted its 17th subcritical nuclear experiment Friday at an underground test site in Nevada. The test had been scheduled for Wednesday, but was postponed for technical reasons.