SAITAMA (TR) – Saitama Prefectural Police have arrested two men over the alleged rape of a woman in Saitama City last year, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (Nov. 22).
Early on March 24, 2019, Yota Watanabe and Kazuki Koyama, both 24, are alleged to have sexually assaulted the woman, aged in her 20s, inside a karaoke parlor near JR Omiya Station.
Afterward, Koyama forced the woman into a nearby internet cafe where he is alleged to have sexually assaulted her again.
Upon their arrests on suspicion of coerced intercourse on November 20, the suspects declined to comment on the allegations, the Omiya Police Station said.
The suspects, both of no known occupation, are acquaintances. They brought the woman to the parlor after calling out to her in the street.
The matter emerged when a passerby saw the woman crying outside the station after the incident. “I was raped,” she said.
Previous cases
The arrest is not the first for Watanabe. In 2018, Kanagawa Prefectural Police arrested Watanabe five times for rape, indecent assault, theft and other crimes. He was not prosecuted in January of 2019.
Koyama was also arrested in one of those cases.
Watanabe appeared in the “Mr. Keio SFC Contest” in 2016. The winners of the event are determined via online voting over a three-month period.
