A verdict in the case of lance corporal Jose Torres, charged with rape resulting in injury, is due September 12, said the official with the Naha District Court on Okinawa.

The maximum sentence for the charge is life imprisonment, while the minimum sentence is three years.

Prosecutors charge that on the night of May 25, Torres broke the nose of a 19-year-old woman with a punch to the face after leading her out of a restaurant where they had met for the first time.

He is accused of raping the woman on a road nearby in the town of Kin, on the main island of Okinawa, northeast of the prefectural capital, Naha.

Torres has admitted to the allegations, the Naha prosecutors office said.

The marine was handed over to Japanese custody in June, three weeks before his indictment, under a Japan-US security alliance governing the 47,000 US military personnel in Japan, two-thirds of which are based in Okinawa.

The Japan-US accord does not require the transfer of military personnel to local authorities before an indictment.

But the US allowed such handovers in special cases after the gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by three US servicemen in 1995, which sparked massive protests.

The accord, called the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement, has come under attack by Japanese politicians after a number of high profile criminal cases by military personnel.

Japanese and US negotiators failed to agree before a self-imposed deadline earlier this month on revamping the accord, unable to bridge gaps over the conditions under which a US representative could be present during Japanese police interrogations of US military suspects.

WAR.WIRE