MOSCOW, March 11 (RIA Novosti) – A contractor at a US military air transit center in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan has been detained over his alleged attempted rape of a 22-year-old local woman in the capital, Bishkek, police said Tuesday.
Officials said the man, who has been identified as Manas Transit Center service manager Branden Cornelius, drunkenly resisted arrest, cursed at police officers, broke a desk and ripped off the epaulettes of a police captain while being detailed Sunday morning.
The 29-year-old native of Monterey, California, has been remanded to pretrial detention for at least one month and faces up to seven years in prison on charges of hooliganism and resisting arrest, the spokesman said. The base’s administration and the US Embassy have been informed, he said.
Manas, which was opened three months after 9/11 terrorist attacks and is located on the territory of Bishkek’s commercial airport, is scheduled to close down in July as the US completes its pullout of troops from Afghanistan.
A US commander at the base said last week that the final mission to vacate all US personnel from the facility had been completed.
In 2006 a US soldier at the base, Zachary Hatfield, caused public outcry by fatally shooting a Kyrgyz civilian who was passing through a vehicle checkpoint. He said the civilian, a truck driver, threatened him with a knife so he fired two shots at him with a 9mm gun.
Hatfield, who had impunity as a soldier, was sent back to the US amid pressure from the Kyrgyz president for his impunity to be lifted.
