MANILA: A US Marine suspected in the gruesome killing of a Filipino was flown Wednesday from his warship to the Philippine military’s main camp, where he will continue to be guarded by fellow Marines, in a compromise that eased a looming irritant over his custody.

The emotional case involving Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton and Jennifer Laude, whose former name was Jeffrey, came as the Philippines and the United States were strengthening ties with the recent signing of a defense accord that allows greater US access to Philippine military camps.

The accord would help Washington’s bid to reassert its presence in Asia and Manila to deter what it calls China’s aggressive moves to reinforce its claims in contested South China Sea territories.

Left-wing activists and nationalist Filipinos have cited the custody provision of the accord — which says American military suspects shall remain in US custody until legal processes are completed — as proof that the accord undermines the sovereignty of the Philippines, which was an American colony until 1946.

Pemberton’s transfer by helicopter to Manila was agreed by the US and the Philippines, military chief of staff Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang told a news conference. The 19-year-old Marine, who arrived in handcuffs, was detained in an air-conditioned container van with grilled windows, directly guarded by US Marines while Philippine military police will be posted outside the fenced compound, Catapang said.

President Benigno Aquino III welcomed the US decision to transfer the suspect, telling a news forum with foreign correspondents that the Americans “are responding to our needs and our sensitivities.”

Appearing before a Senate foreign relations committee hearing on Laude’s killing, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the Philippine government would never have agreed if US officials decided to detain Pemberton at the American Embassy in Manila, where a Marine rape suspect was held years ago, describing such a prospect as “totally unacceptable.”

Hours after the US Marine’s transfer, Laude’s mother, two sisters, German friend and the family’s lawyer — trailed by a throng of journalists and TV cameramen — managed to come close to the military camp compound, where Pemberton was being held, and demanded that they be let in.