The Tokyo High Court denied compensation yesterday to the family of a deceased forced laborer from China who escaped from a work site toward the close of World War II and hid in the mountains for some 13 years, unaware that the war had ended.
The high court overturned a 2001 Tokyo District Court decision that marked the first time Japanese judges had awarded compensation to a foreign national forcibly brought to Japan for labor during the war.
The lower court said it awarded the redress not to compensate for the term of  forced labor service but rather to acknowledge the state's negligence in finding and protecting Liu Lianren following Japan's surrender.
The high court in Japan's capital agreed that the government's failure to protect Liu was wrong but rejected the family's demand for compensation for damages from the state, saying that no mutual agreement concerning state redress between Japan and China exists.
According to the 2001 ruling, Liu was forcibly brought to Japan in September 1944 from his home in east China's Shandong Province.
Liu was forced to work at a mine in the town of Numata, in northwestern Hokkaido, from which he ran away with four other forced Chinese laborers in April 1945 and hid in the mountains until he was found in February 1958.
Liu lodged a suit in March 1996 seeking 20 million yen (US$184,000) in compensation. His eldest son, Liu Huanxin, continued the legal action after his father died in September 2000 at age 87.
Liu's family protested the high court ruling and said it would appeal to the Japanese Supreme Court.