MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Second incident involving US Defence personnel and prostitutes surfaces in Brazil

Embarrassing questions for the Pentagon chief (Photo:AP)

Another embarrassing ‘Colombian style’ incident surfaced involving US personnel and prostitutes in Latin America on Tuesday, as US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said that Marines had been punished for allegedly injuring a prostitute in Brazil in December.

Panetta told reporters during a visit to Brasilia that the incident was fully investigated and the military personnel involved had been “severely punished,” demoted and withdrawn from Brazil.

A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident involved three Marine security guards assigned to the US embassy in Brasilia and one embassy staffer.

The personnel allegedly refused to pay for the service and pushed a prostitute from a vehicle, breaking her collarbone, the official said. Allegedly the US embassy paid for the medical treatment bill.

Questions over the incident follow a separate scandal involving the US Secret Service in Cartagena, Colombia earlier this month on the eve of a visit by US President Barack Obama.

The incident in Brazil, which had not previously been widely reported, was raised by a Brazilian journalist at a news conference where Panetta was speaking.

In the Colombia episode, eight Secret Service employees have left their jobs after being implicated in a night of partying and carousing with prostitutes that overshadowed Obama's participation in the Summit of the Americas.

Twelve US military personnel remain under investigation over that affair, in which the men are alleged to have taken as many as 21 prostitutes back to their beachfront hotel in Cartagena on the night of April 11-12.

A US defence official said that all three Marines involved in the incident in Brazil were disciplined, and two were demoted.

Panetta said such behaviour was not acceptable. “They were severely punished,” he said. I have no tolerance for that kind of conduct. Not here or any place in the world.