Ghosn flees Japan

Former Nissan boss skips $6m bail, leaves country for Beirut

FORMER Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn has escaped from Japan, where he was under house arrest on financial misconduct charges, and has flown to Beirut.

It was not clear how Ghosn, who is of Lebanese origin and holds French and Lebanese passports, left Japan where he was under surveillance on $6.4 million bail, and was expected to face trial in April.

Ricardo Karam, a television host and friend of Ghosn who interviewed him several times, said Ghosn arrived in Lebanon on Monday.

“He is home,” Karam said. “It’s a big adventure.”

Lebanese media said he had arrived by private plane from Turkey. The conditions of his bail specified that his passports were kept by his lawyers.

Once revered for rescuing Nissan, the auto tycoon was detained at a Tokyo airport in November 2018 in a case that sent shockwaves through the business community.

He had been permitted to travel inside Japan with his daughter while preparing for his trial. The executive faces charges of deferring part of his salary until after his retirement and concealing this from shareholders as well as siphoning off millions in Nissan cash for his own purposes.

Before his detention, Ghosn had increasingly invested time and money in Lebanon, where his parents were born and where he spent most of his childhood.

The former executive, who oversaw the alliance of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors to create the world’s top-selling autogroup, denies all charges against him. He is seeking to have the case thrown out, arguing that prosecutors and Nissan investigators acted illegally during a probe into his alleged misconduct and that he would not receive a fair trial.

Ghosn has argued he is the victim of a “plot” by Nissan executives to oust him. His lawyers and family were critical of the conditions of detention.