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US marines 'with' rape victim
02/06/2006 15:47 - (SA)
Manila - A witness at a rape trial of four United States marines has testified he saw one of the servicemen carry a drunk Filipino woman from a bar to the van where the alleged sex crime occurred.
The rape charges are punishable by up to 40 years in jail in the Philippines.
The marines have refused to answer the charges, prompting the judge to enter a not guilty plea for them.
A security guard at the Neptune bar, at the former US Subic Bay naval base near Olongapo, west of Manila, told the court on Friday that on the night of November 1, he saw the woman - identified only as "Nicole" - looking drunk and unconscious and being carried on the back of a serviceman.
Judge Benjamin Pozon and prosecution lawyer Hazel Valdez asked the witness, Gerald Muyot, to point out the man he saw carrying the woman.
Muyot tapped the shoulder of one of the men on trial, who identified himself to the court as Daniel Smith.
Muyot said Smith had told him "She's with me and we gotta go now" as he left the bar with the woman.
'Others cheered him on'
Muyot said they got into a van parked outside the bar, and he saw Smith lower down the woman inside the vehicle.
Prosecutors allege lance corporal Smith raped the woman while the others - lance corporals Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis, and staff sergeant Chad Carpentier - cheered him on.
The four are part of the 31st marine expeditionary force stationed on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. They had finished counter-terrorism manoeuvres with Filipino troops when the claimed rape occurred.
Friday's hearing was the first time the servicemen had faced the woman in court.
Watching the proceedings two rows behind the Americans, the woman at one point broke down in tears and was comforted by relatives and members of women's groups.
Lawyers for the defendants said the four would be in court for the rest of the hearings, scheduled four times a week.
The US embassy in the Philippines has refused to turn the four over to Filipino police, citing a provision under the Visiting Forces Agreement that lets US authorities hold American servicemen facing a criminal case.
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