Abubakar Awudu Suraj spent 20 months in an Immigration Bureau detention center before being manhandled onto a jetliner at Narita airport for deportation back to Ghana in March 2010.
He died in handcuffs on the plane. Immigration authorities allegedly used "excessive force" to restrain him.
Authorities have a right to hold foreigners, like Suraj, who violate immigration law. And what happens to them once they are locked up is for many a mystery.