Ghosn's escape inexcusable, Japan says - Fox Business

Government compliance attorney Seth Berenzweig discusses former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn’s flight from Japanese justice.

By YURI KAGEYAMA AP Business Writer

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan's justice minister on Sunday called the flight of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn as he awaited trial on financial misconduct charges inexcusable and vowed to beef up immigration checks.

Justice Minister Masako Mori said she had ordered an investigation after Ghosn issued a statement a few days ago saying he was in Lebanon.

She said there were no records of Ghosn's departure from Tokyo.

She said his bail has been revoked, and Interpol had issued a wanted notice. Departure checks needed to be strengthened to prevent a recurrence, Mori said.

FLIGHT RECORDS OF GHOSN ESCAPE FALSIFIED TO HIDE AUTO EXEC'S TRAVEL, JET FIRM SAYS

A private security guard watches journalists through a closing garage door after a vehicle arrived at the house of ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

While expressing deep regret over what had happened, Mori stopped short of outlining any specific action Japan might take to get Ghosn back.

Japan does not have an extradition treaty with Lebanon.

"Our nation's criminal justice system protects the basic human rights of an individual and properly carries out appropriate procedures to disclose the truth of various cases, and the flight of a suspect while out on bail is never justified," she said in a statement.

CARLOS GHOSN ON JAPAN ESCAPE: 'MY FAMILY HAD NO ROLE'

Mori's statement was the first public comment by a Japanese government official after the stunning escape of Ghosn, once a superstar of the auto industry.

Tokyo prosecutors issued a similar statement Sunday. They had opposed Ghosn's release on bail, arguing he was a flight risk.

A motorbike passes a private security guard standing outside of the house of ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

First arrested in November 2018, Ghosn was out on bail over the last several months, and more recently had moved into a home in an upscale part of Tokyo.

He has repeatedly said he was innocent. His statement from Beirut said he was escaping injustice.

Japan's justice system has come under fire from human rights advocates for its long detentions, the reliance on confessions and prolonged trials.

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The conviction rate is higher than 99%. Even if Ghosn had been found innocent, the prosecutors could have appealed, and the appeals process could have lasted years.

Ghosn's trial was not expected to start until April at the earliest.

During that time, he had been prohibited from seeing his wife, and was only allowed a couple of video calls in the presence of a lawyer.

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Ghosn had been charged with underreporting his future compensation and breach of trust in diverting Nissan money for his personal gain.

Although the details of his escape are not yet clear, Turkish airline company MNG Jet has said two of its planes were used illegally, first flying him from Osaka, Japan, to Istanbul, and then on to Beirut, where he arrived Monday and has not been seen since.

He promised to talk to reporters Wednesday.

His lawyers in Japan said they knew nothing, were stunned and felt betrayed by his action.

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2020-01-05 11:18:42Z
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Manager at Turkish jet operator told authorities he helped Ghosn escape because of threats: newspaper - Reuters

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A manager at Turkish jet operator MNG Jet has told authorities that he assisted unwittingly in the escape of ex-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn from Japan because he had been threatened by a former acquaintance, Hurriyet newspaper reported on Saturday.

Turkish authorities have arrested five suspects, including MNG Jet operations manager Okan Kosemen, on charges of migrant smuggling as part of an investigation into Ghosn’s transit through Turkey en route to Lebanon.

Hurriyet said Kosemen told authorities that a former acquaintance from Beirut had asked him for assistance on what he called a matter of “international significance” and had told him that his family would be harmed if he refused.

The paper did not name the acquaintance who allegedly made the threat.

“I was scared. I took a man from one jet and put him into the other one at the airport. I did not know who he was,” Hurriyet quoted Kosemen as saying in his statement to authorities.

Reuters could not immediately verify the statement.

Officials from MNG Jet and the prosecutor’s office were not immediately available for comment.

A lawyer for Koseman has said he will not make any statement about the issue at the moment.

The private jet operator said on Friday that Ghosn used two of its planes illegally in his escape from Japan, with an employee falsifying lease records to exclude his name from the documents.

The former Nissan Motor Co boss has become an international fugitive after he revealed on Tuesday he had fled to Lebanon to escape what he called a “rigged” justice system in Japan, where he faces charges relating to alleged financial crimes.

Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Frances Kerry

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-01-04 13:09:00Z
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Ghosn lawyer says former Nissan boss 'betrayed' him - Al Jazeera English

A lawyer for former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has said he felt betrayed by his client's escape from Japan but still understood his act, claiming it resulted from Japan's inhumane justice system.

The international tycoon, who faces multiple charges of financial misconduct that he denies, jumped bail and fled to Lebanon in late December to avoid a Japanese trial.

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"First, I was filled with a sense of strong anger. I felt betrayed," Ghosn's lawyer Takashi Takano wrote in his blog, stating that he had not been informed about the plan in advance.

"But anger was turning to something else as I recalled how he was treated by the country's justice system," Takano said.

Ghosn is thought to have taken a private jet from Kansai Airport in western Japan, heading for Istanbul. It is believed he headed from there to Beirut.

"I can easily imagine that if people with wealth, human networks and ability to take action have the same experience (as Ghosn), they would do the same thing or at least consider doing so," Takano said.

Ghosn's high-profile arrest in November 2018 and his long detention under severe conditions were widely considered draconian compared with the West.

Suspects in Japan can be detained for weeks or even months before trial, with limited access to their lawyers, and around 99 percent of trials in the country result in a conviction.

Critics including rights groups such as Amnesty International have derided Japan's system as "hostage justice", designed to break morale and force confessions from suspects.

When safely in Lebanon, Ghosn pressed this point again, saying he "would no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system".

Another lawyer for Ghosn, Junichiro Hironaka, on Saturday also said that harsh bail conditions - notably the restrictions on contact with his wife Carole - appeared to have motivated the tycoon's escape.

"He did not know when he can meet his wife ... and there was no prospect for a change in his bail conditions," Hironaka told reporters.

"I guess these things were really tough for him," the lawyer said.

A Tokyo court banned Ghosn from contacting his wife despite several petitions from his legal team describing the measure as "cruel and a punishment".

He was later permitted to speak to her via video conference only.

While Japanese prosecutors have launched an investigation, the circumstances of Ghosn's Hollywood-like flight from Japan are still unclear.

Citing three sources familiar with the matter, Reuters news agency reported on Saturday that Ghosn left his Tokyo residence after a private security firm hired by Nissan stopped monitoring him.

Nissan had hired a private security company to watch Ghosn, who was on bail and awaiting trial, to check whether he met any people involved in the case, the sources said.

But his lawyers warned the security company to stop watching him as it would be a violation of his human rights, and Ghosn was planning to file a complaint against the company, the sources said.

The security company stopped its surveillance by December 29, the sources said.

Ghosn faces four charges - which he denies - including hiding income and enriching himself through payments to dealerships in the Middle East.

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2020-01-04 12:58:00Z
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Tesla Model 3 Production In China Already Above 3,000 Per Week - InsideEVs

According to the Tesla profile at Weibo, the production capability of the Gigafactory 3 is much bigger than we previously anticipated.

Tesla said that the production rate of the Made-in-China (MIC) Model 3 already exceeds 3,000 per week! Previous reports were about 280 cars a day (10-hour shift) or up to roughly 2,000 weekly.

We are not yet entirely sure whether it is the daily rate (burst) extrapolated to a full week or output for seven days.

Moreover, as it turns out, Tesla has already been producing Model 3 Standard Range Plus battery packs locally at the Gigafactory since December!

Here is the original post (in Chinese):

According to the Tesmanian, "This announcement is supported by Senior Official at GF3 Xue Juncheng's statement that 30 percent of MIC Model 3s were made from local supplies from China-based vendors."

Source: Tesla, tesmanian.com

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2020-01-04 11:50:46Z
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Ghosn fled Japan after security firm hired by Nissan stopped surveillance: sources - Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) - Ousted Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn left his Tokyo residence after a private security firm hired by Nissan Motor Co stopped monitoring him, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.

FILE PHOTO: Carlos Ghosn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Renault, attends the company's annual shareholders meeting in La Defense business district, near Paris, April 29, 2008. French carmaker Renault sticks to its target of a 2008 operating profit margin of 4.5 percent, despite a weaker dollar and pound and a faster than forecast rise in raw material prices, Ghosn told the annual general meeting. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

Ghosn has become an international fugitive after he revealed on Tuesday he had fled to Lebanon to escape what he called a “rigged” justice system in Japan, where he faces charges relating to alleged financial crimes.

Nissan had hired a private security company to watch Ghosn, who was on bail and awaiting trial, to check whether he met any people involved in the case, the three sources said.

But his lawyers warned the security company to stop watching him as it would be a violation of his human rights, and Ghosn was planning to file a complaint against the company, the sources said.

The security company stopped its surveillance by Dec. 29, the sources said.

One of his lawyers, Junichiro Hironaka, told reporters in November that they were considering steps to prevent people from stalking Ghosn.

A Nissan spokesperson declined to comment.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK, citing investigative sources, said a surveillance camera by the authorities in Ghosn’s home showed him leaving alone around noon on Sunday, and did not show him returning.

It was unclear how Ghosn, who holds French, Brazilian and Lebanese citizenship, was able to orchestrate his departure from Japan. He entered Lebanon legally on a French passport, one source has told Reuters.

A Turkish private jet operator said on Friday that Ghosn used two of its planes illegally in his escape from Japan, with an employee falsifying lease records to exclude his name from the documents.

Ghosn has said he will speak publicly about his escape on Jan. 8.

He was first arrested in Tokyo in November 2018, shortly after his private jet touched down at the airport. He faces four charges - which he denies - including hiding income and enriching himself through payments to dealerships in the Middle East.

Reporting by Maki Shiraki and Norihiko Shirouzu, writing by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Kim Coghill

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2020-01-04 07:03:00Z
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Ghosn lawyer outraged by Japan's justice system as by escape - The Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — A lawyer for former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn said Saturday he felt outraged and betrayed by his client’s escape from Japan to Lebanon, but also expressed an understanding for his feelings of not being able to get a fair trial.

“My anger gradually began to turn to something else,” Takashi Takano wrote in his blog post.

Referring to Japan’s judicial system, he said: “I was betrayed, but the one who betrayed me is not Carlos Ghosn.”

Takano described how Ghosn had been barred from seeing his wife, in what Takano called a violation of human rights, and that Ghosn worried whether he would get a fair trial because of prosecutors’ leaks to the media and the prospect that the legal process may take years.

Ghosn, who was awaiting trial in Japan on financial misconduct charges, was last seen on surveillance video leaving his Tokyo home alone, on Dec. 29, presumably to board his getaway plane.

Although the security cameras at his home were on 24 hours, the footage was only required to be submitted to the court once a month, on the 15th, according to lawyers’ documents detailing Ghosn’s bail conditions.

Takano, the main lawyer on Ghosn’s team in charge of his bail, acknowledged most suspects would not be able to pull off an escape like Ghosn’s, but if they could, “they certainly would have tried,” he said.

Takano said he told Ghosn that in all the cases he has handled, there has been none in which the evidence was so scant, and that the chances for winning an innocent verdict were good, even if the trial weren’t fair.

Takano said the last time he saw Ghosn was Christmas Eve, when he was sitting in on the one-hour video call between Ghosn and his wife Carole. A lawyer’s presence is required for the calls, and the length of the call is also restricted, under the bail conditions.

Takano, who is fluent in English, quoted Ghosn as expressing his unfailing love for his family, ending the call with an “I love you.”

Ghosn is known for never having missed a Christmas with his family despite the arduous schedule of an auto executive.

Takano said he had never before felt such disgust over Japan’s legal system.

He apologized to Ghosn after the call, saying he felt shame, and promised to do his utmost in the court case.

Ghosn did not reply, Takano recalled in the blog post that says the opinions are his personal and not of the entire legal team.

The major Japanese daily Sankei reported Saturday that his flight happened just as a private security company hired by Nissan Motor Co. to keep watch over Ghosn stopped work.

Ghosn had been preparing a complaint against the security company, according to Sankei.

Another lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, has complained that spying on his client was a violation of human rights, but he declined to say who might be behind it.

Nissan was closed for the holidays and not immediately available for comment. Sankei said Nissan was worried the surveillance conditions set by the Japanese court weren’t sufficient to keep tabs on Ghosn.

Hironaka told public broadcaster NHK TV late Friday that Ghosn had carried one of his French passports in a locked plastic case, so that it could be read without unlocking, in case he was stopped by authorities. The lawyers had the key. Hironaka told NHK the case could have been smashed with a hammer. Hironaka has denied any knowledge of the escape.

All foreigners in Japan are required to have their passports with them to show to police or other officials. It is unclear whether the French passport is the one Ghosn used to enter Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities have said Ghosn entered the country legally on a French passport, though he had been required to surrender all his passports to his lawyers under the terms of his bail. He also holds Brazilian and Lebanese citizenship.

Video footage at Ghosn’s home shows him walking out Dec. 29, according to NHK. An earlier report said he was carted out inside a musical instrument case.

Turkish airline company MNG Jet said two of its planes were used illegally in Ghosn’s escape, first flying him from Osaka, Japan, to Istanbul, and then on to Beirut, where he arrived Monday and has not been seen since.

It said a company employee had admitted to falsifying flight records so that Ghosn’s name did not appear, adding that he acted “in his individual capacity” without MNG Jet’s knowledge. The company did not say to whom the jets were leased, or identify the employee.

Interpol has issued a wanted notice for Ghosn. Japan has no extradition treaty with Lebanon and it appeared unlikely he would be handed over.

It’s not clear either how Japan might respond.

The defiant and stunning escape of such a high-profile suspect has raised serious questions about the surveillance methods of the Japanese bail system.

Some may argue bail decisions should become more stringent, when bail is already restricted in Japan, compared to the U.S. Trials and preparations before they start take far longer in Japan, where the conviction rate is higher than 99%.

Electronic tethers common in the U.S. are not used in Japan for bail. Ghosn had offered to wear one when he requested bail.

Government offices were shut down for the New Year’s holidays, and there have been no official statements.

Ghosn, who has said in a statement that he left to avoid Japan’s “injustice,” is set to speak to reporters in Beirut on Wednesday.

He has repeatedly said he is innocent, stressing that the charges were trumped up to block a fuller merger between Nissan Motor Co. and alliance partner Renault SA of France.

He has been charged in Japan with underreporting his future compensation and of breach of trust in funneling Nissan money for personal use. Ghosn says the income was never decided, and the payments were for legitimate business.

No date was set for his trial, although his lawyers were aiming for April.

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama at https://twitter.com.yurikageyama

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2020-01-04 02:33:13Z
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Turkish private jet company says rogue employee helped Carlos Ghosn flee Japan - CNN

MNG Jet said in a statement Friday that two of its jets were used "illegally" to transport Ghosn without the knowledge of company management. The company said it has filed a criminal complaint.

MNG said it had leased two separate planes to different clients that did not appear to be connected. One was chartered from Dubai to Osaka and then Osaka to Istanbul, while the other was booked from Istanbul to Beirut.

Turkish police launched an investigation into Ghosn's escape on Thursday, detaining seven people on suspicion of involvement in the plot.

One employee under investigation by Turkish authorities had admitted to falsifying records, according to MNG.

"He confirmed that he acted in his individual capacity, without the knowledge or the authorization of the management of MNG Jet," the company said.

Ghosn — the former chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, and former chairman and CEO of their alliance partner, Renault — had been awaiting trial in Japan on charges of financial wrongdoing, including allegations that he understated his income for years and funneled $5 million of Nissan's money to a car dealership he controlled. He was ousted from his posts at Nissan (NSANF) and Mitsubishi Motors following his arrest in November 2018, and later resigned from Renault (RNLSY).

As a condition of his release on bail, Ghosn was required to stay in Japan. But his case was upended earlier this week after Ghosn revealed that he had fled Japan for Lebanon to escape what he called a "rigged" justice system.

Authorities have been scrambling to figure out how Ghosn pulled off the escape. Prosecutors in Tokyo raided the home where he had been staying on Thursday. Ghosn has denied reports that his family were involved in helping him flee.

— Gul Tuysuz contributed reporting.

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2020-01-03 14:32:00Z
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