Navy officer jailed in Japan over a lethal automotive crash is transferred to U.S. custody, his household says

A Navy officer jailed in Japan over a automotive crash that killed two Japanese residents has been transferred into U.S. custody and is being returned to the United States, his household mentioned Thursday.

Lt. Ridge Alknois had been serving a three-year jail sentence after pleading responsible to the negligent driving deaths of a girl and her son-in-law in May 2021. His household has mentioned the crash was an accident, induced when he misplaced consciousness whereas getting back from a visit to Mount Fuji, however Japanese prosecutors maintained that he fell asleep whereas drowsy and shirked an obligation to tug over.

“After 507 days, Lt. Ridge Alkonis is on his way home to the United States. We are encouraged by Ridge’s transfer back to the United States but cannot celebrate until Ridge has been reunited with his family,” the household, primarily based in Dana Point, California, mentioned in an announcement to The Associated Press, including that it appreciated the U.S. authorities’s efforts to impact the switch.

The Alkonis case had generated substantial publicity during the last yr and a half, together with his household rallying exterior the White House to name for his launch and his spouse, Brittany, assembly and embracing President Joe Biden, who raised the case throughout a May assembly with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

It was unclear the place within the U.S. Alkonis is heading or whether or not upon his arrival he is perhaps required to spend further time behind bars underneath the phrases of his switch from Japan.

“When the Biden Administration is presented with the complete set of facts and circumstances surrounding the case, we’re confident they will promptly recognize the absurdity of Ridge’s conviction,” the household mentioned. “We trust that the (Department of Justice) will urgently wish to end this travesty of justice by immediately releasing Ridge, and we look forward to Ridge enjoying the holidays at home with his wife and children.”

A Justice Department spokesperson referred a request for remark to the Bureau of Prisons, which didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail.

Alkonis is a specialist in underseas warfare and acoustic engineering who on the time of the crash had spent almost seven years in Japan as a civilian volunteer and naval officer.

In the spring of 2021, after a interval of land-based assignments, Alkonis, a Southern California native, was making ready for a deployment as a division head on the USS Benfold, a missile destroyer.

With the task looming, he set out for an tour of Mount Fuji for mountaineering and sightseeing together with his spouse and kids. They had climbed a portion of the mountain and have been again within the automotive, heading to lunch and ice cream close to the bottom of Mount Fuji, when, his household says, he instantly misplaced consciousness after struggling acute mountain illness.

He was so out of it, they are saying, that neither his daughter’s screams to get up nor the affect of the collision roused him. His automotive veered into parked automobiles and pedestrians in a parking zone, placing the lady and her son-in-law, who each later died.

After the crash close to Fujinomiya, Alkonis was arrested by Japanese authorities and was held for 26 days in solitary confinement at a police detention facility, was interrogated a number of occasions a day and was not given medical remedy or an analysis, based on an announcement of information supplied by a household spokesman.

That assertion says that when American authorities arrived to take Alkonis into custody and return him to a U.S. base, he already was held by the Japanese.

He was indicted on a cost of a negligent driving, leading to dying, and was sentenced that October to a few years in jail.

“The word that comes to our mind is fairness. We want him to be treated fairly for an accident,” Alkonis’ father, Derek Alkonis, mentioned in an interview final yr with the AP. “We don’t feel like it’s been that way. We know it hasn’t been that way. And it concerns us that our son has been given a three-year prison sentence for an accident.”

After the sentencing, Alkonis’ household had sought to maintain the case within the public highlight, together with by gathering exterior the White House.