copts = ["-properties", "PATH"]) : providing a file for compilation

[lingithub1]

ecj provides the option -properties <PATH.prefs>.
I want to use this in a Bazel build.

java_binary(
  name = "...",
  [...],
  copts = ['-properties', "$(location PATH.prefs)"],
  data = ["PATH.prefs"],

)

I realize that data is not the proper way to pass a file a compile time. It should be use for run-time dependencies only. However, I don't see any other way. What is even worse: This trick works with linux-sandbox only. It does not work with processwrapper-sandbox on Bazel 6.3:

ERROR: ... Building ... failed: (Exit 1): process-wrapper failed: error executing command 
  (cd ... && \
  exec env - \
    LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 \
    PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin \
    TMPDIR=/tmp \
  .../.bazel/install/26e2b9d91a61d6e0d8c2850762265193/process-wrapper '--timeout=0' '--kill_delay=15' '--stats=/localworkspaces/bazel-sandbox-base/bazel-sandbox.97fbdda77993e14c10a2e52f1d2c9873e80b2acf58877f5c0968cea1490fd90d/processwrapper-sandbox/239/stats.out' /usr/lib/jvm/java-17/bin/java --module-path external/ecj/ecj.jar -jar external/bazel_jdt_java_toolchain/compiler/export/JdtJavaBuilder_deploy.jar @bazel-out/k8-....jar-0.params @bazel-out/k8-.....jar-1.params)
properties file ....prefs does not exist

Any ideas?