Ghosn’s wife slams Japan detention as ‘draconian’ in letter

The wife of Nissan’s former chairman Carlos Ghosn has written a letter to Human Rights Watch, a global advocacy group, criticizing her husband’s long detention and Japan’s criminal justice system as unfair and harsh.

“My husband’s is a case study in the realities of this draconian system,” Carole Ghosn wrote in a nine-page letter Monday to the Tokyo branch of the organization. Carlos Ghosn was arrested Nov. 19 and has been charged with falsifying financial reporting in underreporting his income and with breach of trust in having Nissan Motor Co. shoulder his personal investment losses and make payments to a Saudi businessman.

Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades and rescued the Japanese automaker from nearbankruptcy, asserted his innocence in a Tokyo court last week. It was his first public appearance since his arrest.

Carole Ghosn’s letter describes how prosecutors interrogate-prisoners-without a lawyer present in an apparent effort to get a confession- conditions that are routine for suspects in Japan. Japan’s system has come under fire from international human rights groups, as her letter notes.

Confined to an unheated cell, her husband has lost almost 7 pounds (3 kilograms) in two weeks, with meals of mainly rice and barley, she wrote.

He is denied his medication, given 30 minutes to exercise daily and is allowed to bathe two or three times a week, she said.

“No human being should be detained under conditions so harsh that their only plausible purpose is to coerce a confession,” said the letter, which cited cases in which people were later found innocent but had been detained for months.

Tokyo Deputy Chief Prosecutor Shin Kukimoto told reporters last week that prosecutors are confident they have a case.

He has repeatedly denied that prosecutors are responsible for the system’s setup, and stressed they are merely doing their jobs.