TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's top court has rejected an appeal by a Kurdish man seeking damages of 11 million yen ($73,000) from the government for alleged assault at a Japanese detention center where he was being held in 2019.

The decision by the Supreme Court's No. 2 Petty Bench, dated Wednesday, finalizes lower court rulings ordering the government to pay the 46-year-old man 220,000 yen for the incident at the immigration center in Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo.

In April 2023, the Tokyo District Court ruled some actions of the staff at the immigration center were illegal, including when someone forcibly pushed their thumb under the man's chin and when his arms were pulled up while handcuffed behind his back.

The Tokyo High Court upheld the ruling in April last year.

According to the rulings, Deniz, who declined to give his surname for fear of retaliation against his family in Turkey, was sent to the Higashi-Nihon Immigration Center in February 2017 after his application for refugee status was rejected by the state.