Filipino woman hits Marine accused of rape in court

MANILA, July 10 (Reuters) A Filipino woman, testifying against four US Marines accused of raping her last year, hit one of them with her handbag in a courtroom today after saying he tried to trip her.

The Marines, being detained by the US embassy in Manila, deny the charges filed in December, saying only one of them had sex with the woman and that it was consensual.

The woman, resuming her testimony after breaking down several times in previous hearings, said the Marines took advantage of her after they drank together at a bar in Subic Bay, a former US navy base northwest of Manila, on November 1.

She accuses Lance Corporal Daniel Smith of forcing her to have sex in a van.

''I did not like what he was doing to me,'' the woman told a packed courtroom. ''I tried to fight back. I tried to push him away from me. He kissed me on the lips, neck and chest. I turned my head from left to right.'' There was a minor commotion at the outset when the woman hit Smith with her handbag after she thought he and another of the Marines tried to trip her as she walked across the courtroom.

Court and US embassy personnel moved quickly to separate the woman and Smith.

The woman, a management accounting graduate, will testify again tomorrow after the judge stopped the hearing for the day.

The case has generated heavy local media attention, with critics arguing that a Visiting Forces Agreement gives US soldiers too much legal protection.

But the trial has prompted only small protests and is not expected to hurt close ties between the Philippines and the United States, its former colonial ruler.

REUTERS KD ND1628