Lebanese government had asked Japan to let the former Nissan
chief face trial in Beirut
By Nick Kostov, Rory Jones and David Gauthier-Villars
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (January 2, 2020).
Carlos Ghosn's escape to Lebanon from Japan followed months of
planning by associates aimed at getting the former head of the
Renault-Nissan alliance to a country they believed would provide a
more friendly legal environment to try the claims of financial
wrongdoing against him, according to people familiar with the
matter.
The Lebanese government had for months been asking Tokyo to send
Mr. Ghosn -- a Lebanese citizen -- to Beirut, where it proposed he
would stand trial on corruption charges, according to a senior
Lebanese official. Japanese authorities arrested Mr. Ghosn in late
2018 and have accused the former chief of automakers Renault SA,
Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. of a series of
financial crimes, which he denies.
Mr. Ghosn was spirited from his court-monitored residence in
Tokyo over the weekend onto a private jet, bound for Turkey, and
then continued by plane to Lebanon, landing there early Monday
morning, the people said. The Tokyo District Court told Japanese
media on Wednesday it formally revoked Mr. Ghosn's release on bail,
which means the government will confiscate the Yen1.5 billion
($13.8 million) in bail money he paid.
Mr. Ghosn grew up in Lebanon and enjoys broad popularity as a
globally successful businessman. Lebanon's ambassador to Japan was
a frequent visitor of Mr. Ghosn when he was in jail there. Lebanese
officials said he entered the country legally and wasn't subject to
any restrictions.
Upon his return to Lebanon, Mr. Ghosn met up with his wife,
Carole Ghosn, who played a role in the operation, the people said.
In a text message to The Wall Street Journal, Mrs. Ghosn described
being reunited with her husband as the "best gift of my life."
The Lebanese government had no knowledge ahead of time of Mr.
Ghosn's plans to flee to Lebanon, according to Salim Jreissati,
minister of state for presidential affairs. In an interview, he
said the government hasn't had any contact with Japanese officials
and was awaiting more details from Mr. Ghosn, who is expected to
address the media next week.
"The Lebanese government had nothing to do with his escape," Mr.
Jreissati said. "We have no idea at all about the circumstances of
his departure."
Well ahead of Mr. Ghosn's escape, however, Mr. Jreissati said
Lebanon repeatedly wrote to Japanese officials asking that Mr.
Ghosn be handed over to Lebanon and tried according to the United
Nations Convention against Corruption, to which Lebanon is a
signatory. Japan didn't respond, Mr. Jreissati said. The Lebanese
minister said he reiterated that position to Japan's Minister of
State for Foreign Affairs Keisuke Suzuki when he visited Beirut
last month. Mr. Suzuki didn't immediately respond to an email to
his office.
Lebanese law allows for citizens, like Mr. Ghosn, to be
prosecuted for crimes committed overseas, as long as the offense is
also a crime in Lebanon. Mr. Jreissati said the Lebanese government
wouldn't bring a case against Mr. Ghosn until it received evidence
from Japan.
An international shift in legal jurisdictions for such a
high-profile criminal case would be highly unusual. Japanese
prosecutors have faced months of international scrutiny over a
legal system Mr. Ghosn says is skewed against him.
But Lebanon's highly sectarian and unstable government -- and
the country's endemic corruption -- would also raise global
scrutiny over the ability of any trial there to be conducted
fairly. Mr. Jreissati didn't respond to a question on the fairness
of a trial in Lebanon.
Mr. Ghosn's plan, according to a person familiar with it, is to
clear his name by seeking a trial in Lebanon. Mr. Ghosn's advocates
believe that under Lebanese law, prosecutors there could work with
Japanese counterparts to bring a case -- albeit in conditions Mr.
Ghosn regards as more favorable than those in Japan, according to
this person.
Japanese prosecutors haven't yet commented on the move, but have
previously defended their legal system and said Mr. Ghosn would get
a fair trial.
Mr. Ghosn is charged there with financial crimes, including
causing Nissan to fail to report more than $80 million in planned
future income on the company's financial statements and directing
Nissan money to be spent for his personal benefit.
Mr. Ghosn's escape surprised his own lawyer in Japan. Junichiro
Hironaka said he last saw Mr. Ghosn on Dec. 25, and was planning to
meet him again in January. He said, without providing details, that
Mr. Ghosn's flight might have taken a "big organization" to
arrange. He said the legal team was still holding Mr. Ghosn's
French, Lebanese and Brazilian passports.
Mr. Ghosn's decision to take flight has its roots in what he
perceived to be his mistreatment by a legal system that he believes
is stacked against defendants. "I have not fled justice -- I have
escaped injustice and political persecution," he said in a
statement emailed to reporters on Tuesday morning. He complained of
"a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed."
Mr. Ghosn, who claims he was victimized in a Nissan-Renault
tug-of-war, spent more than four months in jail, over two stints,
before the court ordered his release on bail in late April. He
particularly bristled at restrictions that the court placed on his
contact with his wife, according to people familiar with the
matter.
Then the court gave Mr. Ghosn what he took as a double insult
for Christmas, according to people familiar with the matter. First,
it denied his request to have contact with his wife for the
holidays. And at a Christmas Day hearing, he believed the court was
dragging its feet on setting a date for the trial, leading him to
fear the legal process might take years, the people said.
"He couldn't see his wife. He couldn't get dates for his trial,"
one of the people said. "It was humiliation. It was moral
torture."
Behind the scenes, according to people familiar with the matter,
Mr. Ghosn's advisers had been studying several scenarios to spare
him a Japanese trial, where more than 99% of those indicted are
convicted, according to official statistics. Lawyers and family
members appealed to French leaders to intervene, for instance. They
also looked at what would happen if he ended up in France, Brazil
or the U.S., according to one person familiar with the matter.
It couldn't be learned exactly how Mr. Ghosn was able to slip
away from Japanese authorities in order to get on the private jet
that spirited him out of the country. Mr. Ghosn had been living in
a house in Tokyo. While he was permitted to leave the house, he had
been required to stay in the country pending his trial.
Flight-tracking data details only one journey that matches Mr.
Ghosn's movements between Japan and Lebanon. A long-range
Bombardier business jet left Kansai International Airport near
Osaka -- about a six-hour drive west from Tokyo -- on Sunday at
11:10 p.m. Traversing Russian airspace, the plane arrived Monday
morning at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, according to
flight-tracking data. A smaller jet operated by the same company,
Turkey-based MNG Jet Havacilik AS, left the airport for Beirut just
over half an hour later, the data show.
A person who answered the phone at MNG Jet declined to
comment.
On Wednesday, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu was
quoted by daily newspaper Hurriyet as saying that he had found no
trace in official records of Mr. Ghosn making a recent stopover in
Turkey.
Mr. Ghosn entered Lebanon with a French passport and a Lebanese
identification card, according to a person familiar with the
matter. That's despite his Japanese lawyer saying his team had
possession of at least one French passport.
Mr. Ghosn is staying in Lebanon with his wife in a family house,
which has a surveillance system, according to people familiar with
the matter. Mr. Ghosn fears being snatched and returned to Japan,
one of the people said.
--Mark Maremont, Nazih Osseiran and Sean McLain contributed to
this article.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com, Rory Jones at
rory.jones@wsj.com and David Gauthier-Villars at
David.Gauthier-Villars@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 02, 2020 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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