Japan high court denies damages in Ghanaian’s deportation death

TOKYO, Jan  18, 2016 (AFP) - A Japanese high court on Monday overruled an earlier ruling that awarded compensation to the family of a Ghanaian who died in immigration custody after being physically restrained and gagged, a court official said.

In March 2014 the Tokyo District Court decided that the family of Abubakar Awudu Suraj -- who was awaiting deportation at the time of his death in 2010 -- should receive five million yen ($43,000) in damages since he had died as a result of choking.

The 45-year-old victim died at Tokyo’s Narita airport as he was being forcibly led aboard a plane destined for Cairo in his deportation process due to illegally overstaying.

Immigration officials used restraints locked to Suraj’s belt to control him. He was also gagged with a towel and forced to bend over, a position which the district court said led to his suffocation.

But the Tokyo High Court on Monday reversed the lower court decision, the court official said. Details of the ruling were not immediately available.

According to the Asahi Shimbun daily, the high court ruled that the man died due to a heart problem and “there was no cause-effect relation” with the method of restraint.

Prosecutors at the time decided not to press criminal charges against immigration officials involved in the man’s death.

But Suraj’s widow filed a civil lawsuit demanding an explanation of how he died.

Japan tightly restricts immigration and rarely grants political asylum despite being a major foreign aid donor.

The strict limits come even as the country wrestles with a rapidly ageing population and fewer young people to pay for the care of retired elders.

Human rights activists, lawyers and migrant communities have complained for years about the harsh treatment meted out by some immigration officials and conditions at immigration detention centres.

A Sri Lankan detainee collapsed and died after complaining of chest pains at a detention centre in 2014, while the year before a Rohingya asylum-seeker also collapsed and died after staff failed to call for medical help.