Members of Congress are calling on Japanese authorities to release an American naval officer who recently began serving a three-year sentence for his role in an accidental car crash which claimed the lives of two Japanese nationals.
Lieutenant Ridge Alkonis on Tuesday reported for the start of his sentence, which was imposed on him by a Japanese court earlier this year after he was convicted of negligent driving charges stemming from a May 2021 car accident.
Alkonis was driving his wife and his two children down a mountain road on the slopes of Mount Fuji following a hike, just days before he was set to begin a deployment on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Benfold. During the descent, he lost consciousness and his vehicle struck several parked cars and killed an elderly Japanese woman and her son-in-law.
He was arrested and detained for interrogation by Japanese police over a 26-day period, after which Navy Medical Corps personnel found that he had been afflicted by Acute Mountain Sickness on account of his rapid ascent and descent from Japan’s highest mountain. Yet he was indicted on the negligent driving charges by Japanese prosecutors who argued that he had fallen asleep....
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