OSAKA -- An Afghan man suing the Japanese government for not granting him refugee status testified before the Osaka District Court on Friday of the cruelty inflicted upon him and his family by the ruling Taliban in his home country.

The district court is holding an inquiry into the case of Ghulam Hussain, 48, a member of the ethnic minority group Hazara, which has a history of participating in activities against the Islamic fundamentalist movement.

Hussain filed the suit in February 2000 demanding that the Osaka Regional Immigration Bureau nullify an earlier decision not to recognize him as a political refugee, arguing that authorities failed to thoroughly review his application.

Hussain was in tears before the court as he recounted how the Taliban gathered local Hazara men in a square near his home and stabbed them to death after the Islamic fundamentalist group invaded Kabul in 1996. He said he survived by pretending to be dead.

He also said that after arriving in Japan in 1999 he learned three of his family members, including his eldest son, had been killed by the Taliban, adding that Japan should not turn down his application for refugee status as the situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime is well known.

According to the complaint, Hussain applied to the Osaka Regional Immigration Bureau for refugee status in September 1999.

At the time, he was in Japan buying auto parts when an acquaintance in Pakistan told him a warrant for his arrest had been issued there in his absence. He had been living in Pakistan since fleeing Afghanistan.

Immigration authorities originally provided him with an interpreter who spoke Persian, a language Hussain does not understand, and did not give him a chance to fully explain his application and present supporting evidence, the complaint said.

The authorities decided in December 1999 not to approve his application and told him he was not allowed to submit another application since his 60-day visa had expired, the complaint says.