Lt. Ridge Alkonis, a Navy officer, was released from prison on Friday, about a month after he was transferred to the United States following his conviction in Japan for causing a deadly traffic accident, a case that had strained relations between the two countries.
He had served half of his three-year sentence in Japan and was expected to serve the rest of it in the United States, with an American agency deciding the length of his incarceration. That agency, the U.S. Parole Commission, ruled on Friday that he had already served a long-enough sentence. He was released the same day, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
