The Suraj case represents a groundbreaking step!

A groundbreaking step has been taken regarding Suraj's case.
The following is a report from the defense team.

(We are still accepting petitions calling for an early indictment in the Suraj case. Download here →)Here←)

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Report on the progress of Suraju's trial
April 18, 2011
Lawyers Kentaro Iida and Ryoko Minagawa

On March 31, 2011, the Tokyo High Court made a landmark decision: it ordered the government to disclose the report detailing the circumstances surrounding Suraj's death.

Suraj died on March 22, 2010, while being deported. It is suspected that immigration officials put a towel in Suraj's mouth or used a gag on him at that time. If this is true, the actions of the immigration officials are inexcusable. Therefore, Suraj's wife decided to file a claim for state compensation. However, despite repeated requests from Suraj's wife and her legal team to the government for an explanation of the truth, the government has refused to provide a detailed explanation of what happened at the time, nor has it released the report detailing the circumstances of Suraj's death.

Therefore, on September 24, 2010, the defense team requested the court to examine this report as evidence in advance. This procedure is called evidence preservation procedure. It wasn't until December 6 that the decision was finally made to hold the evidence preservation procedure. Over the New Year's holiday, the defense team, together with the judge, went to the Ministry of Justice to persuade the government to disclose the report. However, even then, the government refused to disclose the report. The defense team also requested the court to compel the government to disclose the report, but the court refused, stating that "documents related to criminal proceedings are not suitable for disclosure orders." This decision came shortly after 10 immigration officials were finally referred to the prosecutor's office in connection with the death of Suraj on December 28, 2010.

The defense team then appealed the court's decision to the Tokyo High Court. The decision mentioned at the beginning was issued in response to that appeal. The Tokyo High Court severely criticized the government's response to date, stating that "despite a year having passed, no detailed explanation has been given regarding the circumstances surrounding Ms. Suraj's death" and "despite promising to set up a contact point, no contact has been made whatsoever," and ordered the disclosure of the report.

Once this report is released, we will know what happened on the day Suraj died. This will finally be the first step toward filing a lawsuit for state compensation. However, the evidence is still insufficient. The government says it has submitted a videotape to the investigative authorities that shows the entire sequence of events surrounding Suraj's death. The defense team intends to continue working towards uncovering the truth, including urging the prosecutor to proceed with the investigation.