The Tokyo High Court on Thursday overturned a lower court decision and denied compensation to the family of a deceased Chinese slave laborer who lived as a fugitive for 13 years after escaping from a Hokkaido coal mine near the end of World War II.
After fleeing the mine, Liu Lianren of Shangdong Province hid in the mountains for about 13 years, unaware that the war had ended.
The lawsuit was originally filed by Liu himself in March 1996. After he died in 2000 at age 87, his widow and two children took the lawsuit over.