Ex Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn jumps bail, is smuggled to Lebanon on a private jet

Holy crap!!! This story gets more and more insane as it continues.

Since Bollore was talking of a "coup" when he got whacked a few months ago I am sure Ghosn is going to have some grievances to air about Renault-Nissan now that he has free media access once again...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/30/business/carlos-ghosn-lebanon/index.html

Carlos Ghosn has arrived in Lebanon after fleeing Japan, where he faced charges of financial wrongdoing, in a dramatic escape from what the former auto industry boss called a "rigged" justice system.

The sudden flight under mysterious circumstances is the latest twist in a legal saga that has resulted in Ghosn's ouster as chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, and his resignation as chairman and CEO of alliance partner Renault.

Ghosn confirmed in a statement Tuesday that he had arrived in Lebanon, saying that he would "no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant, and basic human rights are denied."

It's not clear how Ghosn — who is a citizen of France, Brazil and Lebanon — was able to leave Japan before his trial took place. Ghosn's lawyer Junichiro Hironaka told reporters Tuesday that the departure of his client, who faced a lengthy potential prison sentence, was a "complete surprise."

Thank you for making your thread title actually represent what the thread is about. 

I have heard bad things about the Japanese legal system. Like, if they charge you most of the time they're going to convict you whether or not you actually did the crime in question.

In reply to dculberson :

Saving face seems to be priority #1 or at least that's what television had led me to believe.

dean1484 said:

Thank you for making your thread title actually represent what the thread is about. 

I was really confused by this comment until I clicked through the rest of the threads on the front page. I didn't even realize this was being discussed already (with fair reason, I might add)!

You are smuggled when you are under the floorboards of the Millennium Falcon, I am guessing he had champagne and caviar on his flight.

In reply to pinchvalve :

I dunno, reports are now saying that he escaped by hiding inside a musical instrument case (specifically a double bass case) so I have to tip my hat at least a little bit.

dculberson said:

I have heard bad things about the Japanese legal system. Like, if they charge you most of the time they're going to convict you whether or not you actually did the crime in question.

At the same time they also rarely bother prosecuting unless they are confident they have an ironclad case. For the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance to even bring the case forward they must have had some serious evidence to support it.

Aside from extradition possibilities, is Lebanon really the place to go to now a daze?

Private jet probably couldn't make it to Brazil without a refuel stop in countries that may have extradited Ghosn?

L5wolvesf said:

Aside from extradition possibilities, is Lebanon really the place to go to now a daze?

Ghosn is a Lebanese citizen.

Hmmm.  Wealthy corporate CEO eludes justice.  Nothing new here.

No updates on the Nissan media site. 

This seems all so unnecessary....Crime is SOP for large industry in today's world and it seems hypocritical to single out individuals for political reasons. World court should just post a dollar value where, one your net worth reaches the goal,  the rule of law no longer applies to you, so as someone recently told the world "Get over it". Such transparency would remove a lot of the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes if  it were just accepted for what it is. Nothing would change from where we sit in the cheap seats.

Pete

If I had his money I don't know that I'd have picked getting stuffed in an oversized guitar case.  There's got to be better things to hide in. 

In reply to Wally :

Like a rhino?

Javelin said:

L5wolvesf said:

Aside from extradition possibilities, is Lebanon really the place to go to now a daze?

Ghosn is a Lebanese citizen.

Also, any place can be reasonably nice and safe if you're rich enough.

This is some entertaining Altered Carbon E36 M3 right here. Turns out he flew direct from Japan to Turkey, which is kind of disappointing because I did my research to see if he could've escaped on a Pilatus PC-24 (private jet with bushplane-like landing capabilities), and it turns out that he would've had to make 2 fuel stops in that model. Which suggests that he took off from a real airport of some kind.

Bribes are so much less cyberpunk than private jet bush takeoffs

In reply to NOHOME :

One could argue that at least the Japanese were trying.

boxedfox said:

dculberson said:

I have heard bad things about the Japanese legal system. Like, if they charge you most of the time they're going to convict you whether or not you actually did the crime in question.

At the same time they also rarely bother prosecuting unless they are confident they have an ironclad case. For the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance to even bring the case forward they must have had some serious evidence to support it.

Still, no jury trials, and they can hold you for 23 days of questioning without a lawyer present and isolated from all outside contact without charges. A 99+% conviction rate coupled with those things doesn't exactly scream "fair trial." Actually a 99+% conviction rate in any criminal justice system seems obviously problematic.

GameboyRMH said:

Bribes are so much less cyberpunk than private jet bush takeoffs

Amen to that...

With the right ghost writer....it's gonna be a hell of a book!

dculberson said:

boxedfox said:

dculberson said:

I have heard bad things about the Japanese legal system. Like, if they charge you most of the time they're going to convict you whether or not you actually did the crime in question.

At the same time they also rarely bother prosecuting unless they are confident they have an ironclad case. For the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance to even bring the case forward they must have had some serious evidence to support it.

Still, no jury trials, and they can hold you for 23 days of questioning without a lawyer present and isolated from all outside contact without charges. A 99+% conviction rate coupled with those things doesn't exactly scream "fair trial." Actually a 99+% conviction rate in any criminal justice system seems obviously problematic.

Or maybe they do enough up-front work to avoid charging innocents.

Before I went to Japan I consulted with a Japanese lawyer. Essentially, if you steal a package of bubblegum, the police have the right to hold you for a month without any contact. In that month they can interrogate you as much as they want and as long as they want. After that they can go to a judge to get an extension on holding you. That extension can be up to a year, and most of the times it is. They can then get more extensions if they need for probable cause.
 

The reason the Japanese judicial system has such a good conviction rate is that they can force a confession out of you. All they have to do is wait you out. 

AngryCorvair said:

Or maybe they do enough up-front work to avoid charging innocents.

You really have that much faith in people?

Whether Ghosn was guilty or not, Japan's criminal justice system is known off-handedly as a "hostage justice" system in the larger world and is extremely controversial internationally, to the point that it has been condemned by the United Nations in a few instances.

https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/japans-hostage-justice-system/

Japanese police and prosecutors routinely split crimes to give them the option of filing additional charges. In an absurd practice, when a corpse is found a suspect is routinely first detained on the charge of “corpse abandonment” and then, a maximum of 23 days later, re-arrested for murder. Ghosn has been re-arrested twice and could be re-arrested a third time when his current detention period ends on January 11.

Japanese judges rarely oppose investigators’ requests for arrest. Fewer than 2 percent are turned down. Hiroji Yamashiro, a prominent peace protester, was detained in 2016 for five months before he was finally released on bail after protesting in front of a U.S. military base in Okinawa. Sun-Dyu, a musician, was detained for 10 months without bail on suspicion of stealing 10,000 yen (around $90) from a store, while Atsuko Muraki, a senior bureaucrat, was detained for four months on suspicion of violating postal service laws. Both were eventually found not guilty.  

Shockingly, the Japanese Criminal Procedure Code does not allow lawyers to be present during the questioning of suspects. This is an approach to the rights of accused people that one would expect in a dictatorship, not in Japan. International human rights law to which Japan is bound guarantees a suspect the right “[t]o communicate with counsel of his own choosing,” which has been interpreted to mean prompt access to counsel without restrictions.

In 2013 Japan’s human rights envoy, Hideaki Ueda, told a UN panel to “shut up” after a diplomat pointed out that Japan’s criminal justice system depends on coerced confessions and described it as being from the Middle Ages.