CAMP FOSTER (Japan) - A US military court martial found a US Marine guilty of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old Japanese girl in a case that triggered mass protests on the southern island of Okinawa.

But Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott, 38, was cleared of rape and other charges including kidnapping through luring, Lieutenant Colonel David S. Oliver, the presiding judge, said.

'You were ignorant of her true age,' he told the Marine, in explaining his verdict.

The Marine was accused of raping the girl in February in his car on Okinawa, home to more than half of the 40,000 US troops based in Japan under a security treaty.

Japanese prosecutors declined to indict him after the girl dropped the case, apparently because she did not want to be in the public glare. But the case was picked up by the US military. -- AFP