Fugitive from Japanese justice, former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn emerges from hiding
The story of Carlos Ghosn is so dramatic, so sensational, that Hollywood can't make this stuff up and sell it as credible. Ghosn is the former Nissan chief executive officer, a man who is revered in his home country of Lebanon for his business acumen, who fell from grace in Japan after being accused of presiding over financial irregularities. Nissan, a Japanese company, has not backed their former employee, working instead to throw the book at him in a country where it appears that you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. The Wall Street Journal has been unravelling the fascinating details of how Ghosn escaped from Japan in an audacious plan that would put a spy novel to shame. It includes him being smuggled out of the country in a black box with tiny airholes under the blind eyes of airport security personnel. The story of who helped Ghosn, and how, can be found at BizNews Premium. Ghosn has recently emerged from hiding to start re-building his reputation, as Bloomberg reports here. – Jackie Cameron
Carlos Ghosn goes on the offensive in first appearance since escape
By Matthew Campbell and Greg Farrell
(Bloomberg) – Carlos Ghosn went on the attack against Japan's criminal justice system less than two weeks after becoming the world's most famous fugitive with a daring escape to Lebanon.
"I was brutally taken from my world as I knew it," the former head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA said in Beirut on Wednesday, addressing a press conference for the first time since his arrest for financial crimes over a year ago. "I was ripped from my family, my friends, from my communities, and from Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi."
Ghosn's flight from Japan, an escape worthy of a Hollywood spy thriller, marked the latest twist in a saga that began with his stunning arrest at Tokyo's Haneda airport in November of 2018. Now free to speak his mind, the 65-year-old is seeking to salvage his legacy, blighted by allegations of understating his income and raiding corporate resources for personal gain at Nissan. He's also under investigation in France.
"I felt I was a hostage of a country that i had served for 17 years," Ghosn said, in an emotional reaction toward his treatment in Japan after helping rescue Nissan from near-collapse two decades ago.
After more than a year in Japan's criminal justice system, including months locked in a cell, Ghosn has scores to settle. Proclaiming his innocence, he accused Japanese prosecutors, government officials and Nissan executives of conspiring to topple him to prevent a further integration of the Japanese carmaker with Renault.
Ghosn named former Nissan Chief Executive Officer Hiroto Saikawa, Hitoshi Kawaguchi, and Masakazu Toyoda among those involved in the plot against him. Saikawa, Ghosn's successor-turned-accuser lost his own job less than a year later over his own overcompensation scandal.
Ghosn was facing trials that could have landed him in prison for more than a decade when, last week, he bolted to Lebanon in a private jet from Osaka's Kansai International Airport to escape what he described as a "rigged Japanese justice system." The Mediterranean country doesn't have an extradition agreement with Japan.
Now that he's slipped from Japan's grasp, Ghosn is taking his case to the court of public opinion – an arena where he gained a wealth of experience during two decades as one of the world's most prominent and media-savvy business leaders.
"I am here to expose a system of justice that violates the most basic principles of humanity," Ghosn said at the press conference. "These allegations are untrue and I should never have been arrested."
He laid the blame for his treatment not only on the prosecutors, but also on government officials, Nissan and its law firm. Because they leaked false information and withheld information that might have helped him, Ghosn said he was presumed guilty without the ability to clear his name.