Marine convicted in landmark rape case

A US Marine was today convicted in a landmark rape case and sentenced to 40 years in prison, ending a long, emotional trial that has strained US-Filipino ties and tested a joint military pact.

Three other Marines and their Filipino driver were acquitted of complicity.

A 23-year-old Filipina woman, known publicly by her pseudonym Nicole, accused Lance Corporal Daniel Smith of sexually assaulting her while she was drunk last November, while Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier, Lance Corporal Keith Silkwood and Lance Corporal Dominic Duplantis allegedly cheered him on.

Smith (aged 21) from St Louis, Missouri, had testified that the sex was consensual.

Instead, he became the first American soldier to be convicted of wrongdoing since the Filipino senate ordered US bases shut down in the early 1990s and joint training was established under a treaty, the Visiting Forces Agreement, in 1998.

In addition to the sentence, Smith was ordered to pay the defendant 100,000 pesos (€1,500) in compensatory and moral damages.