TOKYO (AP) — Japanese prosecutors on Thursday raided the Tokyo home of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn after he skipped bail and fled to Lebanon before his trial on financial misconduct charges.
Tokyo prosecutors and police did not immediately comment. Japanese media showed investigators entering the home, which was Ghosn's third residence in Tokyo since he was first arrested a year ago. Authorities have now searched each one.
Government offices in Japan are closed this week for the New Year's holidays.
It is unclear how Ghosn avoided the tight surveillance he was under in Japan and showed up in Lebanon.
Ghosn said Tuesday in a statement that he left for Lebanon because he thought the Japanese judicial system was unjust, and he wanted to avoid “political persecution.”
He said he would talk to reporters next week.
Japan does not have an extradition treaty with Lebanon.
Lebanon has said Ghosn entered the country legally, and there was no reason to take action against him.
His lawyers in Japan said they had no knowledge of the escape and they had all his passports. Ghosn has French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK TV, without identifying sources, reported Thursday that Ghosn had two French passports.
Earlier Japanese reports said there were no official records in Japan of Ghosn’s departure, but a private jet had left from a regional airport to Turkey.
Ghosn, who was charged with under-reporting his future compensation and breach of trust, has repeatedly asserted his innocence, saying authorities trumped up charges to prevent a possible fuller merger between Nissan Motor Co. and alliance partner Renault SA.
His 1.5 billion yen ($14 million) bail that Ghosn posted on two separate instances to get out of detention is being revoked.
He was once a titan of the car industry who held hero status in Japan. He then became one of the country's most well-known criminal suspects. Now he's an international fugitive.
Carlos Ghosn, the multi-millionaire former boss of Nissan, spent months preparing to stand trial on financial misconduct charges. At least, that was what the Japanese authorities were led to believe.
He posted 1bn yen (£6.8m; $8.9m) in bail in April. He was monitored by a 24-hour camera installed outside his house. His use of technology was heavily restricted and he was banned from travelling abroad.
Then, in a move that left Japan red-faced and his own legal team baffled, he appeared in Lebanon on New Year's Eve. "I have escaped injustice and political persecution," he declared in a statement.
"We were completely caught by surprise. I am dumbfounded," his lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, told a crowd of reporters in Tokyo shortly after learning of Mr Ghosn's flight. "I want to ask him, 'How could you do this to us?'"
Another pressing question is: how did he do it at all?
A musical escape?
One Lebanese TV channel - MTV - reported that Mr Ghosn had fled his court-approved residence in Tokyo with the assistance of a paramilitary group who were disguised amongst a band of musicians.
It said the band had performed at his house and, shortly after they had finished, the 65-year-old hid himself in a large musical instrument case which was then hurried to a local airport. If this really happened, it may have been a tight squeeze even for Mr Ghosn, whose height is reported at 5ft 6in (167cm).
According to the MTV story, he then flew to Turkey, before arriving in Lebanon on a private jet. The broadcaster provided no proof for this theory which, unsurprisingly, spread rapidly across social media.
But donning a spy-movie disguise is not beyond Mr Ghosn. In March, in a bid to throw journalists off his scent, he left prison disguised as a construction worker. He was quickly identified, mocked in the media, and his lawyer soon apologised for the "amateur plan".
The role of Carole Ghosn
The former CEO's getaway from Tokyo to Beirut was meticulously planned over a period of several weeks, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper, which cited a number of unidentified sources, said a team was carefully assembled to carry out the plot. The group reportedly included accomplices in Japan who transported Mr Ghosn from his house and onto a private jet bound for Istanbul. From there, he continued his journey to Beirut where he arrived in the early hours of 30 December.
The plane tracking site FlightRadar24 showed a a Bombardier Challenger private jet arriving at Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport shortly after 04:00 local time. Mr Ghosn then met his wife Carole, who was born in the city and was heavily involved in the operation, the Wall Street Journal says.
Several reports have said Carole Ghosn was a major figure behind the plan for her husband to skip bail and get out of Japan. She spoke with him for more than an hour on 24 December, Mr Ghosn's Japanese lawyer said. The couple had previously been banned from meeting or communicating under Mr Ghosn's strict bail conditions.
After her husband arrived in Lebanon, Mrs Ghosn told the Wall Street Journal that their reunion was "the best gift of my life". She has not commented on her alleged involvement in the operation.
Earlier this year she told the BBC: "I want my husband back. I want him with me. I know he is innocent."
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Carlos Ghosn grew up in Lebanon, owns property there and is a popular figure. He even appeared on one of the country's postage stamps.
He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Three passports
Questions remain about the documents Mr Ghosn used to enter Lebanon. He holds three passports - Brazilian, French and Lebanese - but his legal team maintain that they were in possession of all of them when he left Japan.
It is not known whether Mr Ghosn was holding duplicate passports - as businesspeople are sometimes allowed to do. It has also been reported that he may have had a diplomatic passport issued by Lebanon although this has not been confirmed.
While the French newspaper Le Monde said he travelled on an ID card, others have reported that he may have used a French passport or even a false identity with forged documents. Lebanon's foreign ministry has not said what passport Mr Ghosn travelled on but it has insisted that he entered the country legally.
The embarrassment caused by Mr Ghosn's flight soon sparked a reaction from Japan. One Japanese politician asked whether he "had the support of some country". A former governor of Tokyo was more forthright, accusing Lebanon of direct involvement.
"The government has nothing to do with [Mr Ghosn's] decision to come," Lebanese minister Salim Jreissati was quoted as saying by the New York Times. "We don't know the circumstances of his arrival." France and Turkey have also said they were unaware of Mr Ghosn's plan.
There is no extradition deal between Japan and Lebanon, which means the future of Mr Ghosn's trial is now fraught with uncertainty.
Japan gives millions in aid to Lebanon and will likely want Mr Ghosn returned. But it will no doubt have to answer further questions about how such a high-profile suspect was able to get out of the country in the first place.
Here's what's open and closed on New Years Day. Hours vary by location and some places close early for the holiday, so it's best to call ahead to check.
Target -- Open regular hours
Walmart -- Open regular hours
Kroger-- Open regular hours
Publix -- Open, but many stores have limited hours
Whole Foods -- Open, but many stores have limited hours
Movie theaters -- Open regular hours
Zoos -- Open regular hours
Malls -- Most malls and department stores are open. Call your local stores to check.
Trader Joe's -- Closed
Costco -- Closed
Aldi -- Closed
Government-run locations, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles and public libraries, are most likely going to be closed.
The US Postal Service will not deliver mail Wednesday, and US post offices are closed as well. FedEx and UPS will also be closed.
Banks are generally closed, although ATMs are always available.
If you plan to visit a museum, call to make sure they aren't closed. Not every museum is open on New Year's Day.
HONG KONG — China on Wednesday moved to inject $115 billion in cash into its financial system, suggesting that Beijing remains concerned about faltering growth despite signs that the world’s second-largest economy is stabilizing.
China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, on Wednesday cut the amount of money that it requires the country’s commercial banks to stash away for a rainy day, a measure called the reserve requirement ratio. The move will essentially inject about $115 billion into the financial system after it goes into effect on Monday. The cut comes after a similar move in September.
The change, announced on the New Year’s Day holiday, is likely to focus renewed attention on the health of the Chinese economy, a major driver of global growth. While the move is relatively modest given the vast size of the Chinese economy, it follows a recent meeting of the country’s top economic planners and comes just a few weeks before Beijing releases its growth figures for the last three months of 2019.
China’s leaders are contending with the country’s slowest pace of growth in nearly three decades.
Beijing has been trying to pare down the country’s dependence on borrowing, which helped fuel heady growth in recent years but left big debts on the balance sheets of major corporations and local governments. Reducing that dependence could help prevent major problems down the road, but at the cost of slower growth in the near term.
The Chinese economy has also been hit by President Trump’s trade war. Higher tariffs have made it more expensive to sell Chinese-made goods to American customers, denting China’s factory activity and consumer confidence there. A likely trade truce could limit the damage but still leave many tariffs in place.
Some recent signs had suggested that China’s slowdown was easing. November figures for industrial output and retail sales had suggested the economy was strengthening. The property market, an essential part of the Chinese economy that in recent months had been holding back growth, also appeared to be improving.
But other signs still indicate weakness. The China Beige Book, an economic consulting firm, pointed in its December report to slowing growth in new orders and ramped up borrowing by Chinese companies. “With China’s economy seeing record levels of corporate borrowing,” it said, “is this as good as it gets?”
The cut announced Wednesday was expected by many economists. They see Beijing as trying to find middle ground between supporting economic growth without resorting to more dramatic steps that could rev the economy further but saddle the country with even more debt.
As a result, China’s headline growth figures are widely expected to slow further, though at a measured pace. In the first three quarters of 2019, its output grew 6.2 percent compared with a year before. Still, economists take those figures with a deep amount of skepticism because they tend to be smoother and steadier than those issued by other countries, and they usually hit official targets.
The cut is not unusual so early in the year ahead of China’s Lunar New Year holiday, which begins this year on Jan. 25, and when demand for cash intensifies. The central bank made a similar cut about a year ago.
China’s cut announced on Wednesday reduced the requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points, to 12.5 percent for large banks.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Carlos Ghosn’s daring flight from Japan, where he was awaiting trial on charges of financial wrongdoing, has revived global criticism of the nation’s “hostage justice,” but in Japan is prompting talk of reversing more lenient curbs on defendants.
FILE PHOTO: Former Nissan Motor Chariman Carlos Ghosn leaves the Tokyo Detention House in Tokyo, Japan April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato
The ousted boss of Japan’s Nissan Motor Co and France’s Renault SA fled to Lebanon, saying on Tuesday that he had “escaped injustice” and would “no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system.”
Ghosn was first arrested in November 2018 when his private jet landed in Tokyo and kept in jail for more than 100 days as prosecutors added more charges, all of which he has denied. He was released on $9 million bail in March - only to be arrested and bailed again the following month.
He was facing four charges, including underreporting his Nissan salary and transferring personal financial losses to his employer’s books while he ran Japan’s No. 2 automaker.
His apparent escape from Japan’s legal system - Tokyo and Lebanon don’t have an extradition treaty - will likely halt or even reverse a trend of recent years toward granting bail in more cases, said Colin Jones, a law professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto.
“I would expect it to be more difficult for foreign defendants to get bail,” Jones said.
In Japan, suspects who deny the charges against them are often detained for long periods and subject to intense questioning without a lawyer present, a system critics call “hostage justice.”
Japanese civil rights groups and the main bar lawyers association have long criticized a system that convicts 99.9% of criminal defendants. They say it gives too much power to prosecutors, who can detain suspects for long periods before indictment, and relies too much on confessions, some later found to have been forced and false.
Ghosn’s escape is clearly a shock to Japan’s legal establishment.
“This case raises the extremely serious issue of whether it’s all right to continue the trend toward bail leniency,” said former prosecutor Yasuyuki Takai.
“The legal profession and lawmakers need to quickly consider new legal measures or a system to prevent such escapes,” Takai, who was formerly with the special investigation unit of the prosecutor’s office, told public broadcaster NHK.
“Until the way to achieving this is in sight, we should carefully consider temporarily halting this trend toward bail leniency.”
The Tokyo District Court granted Ghosn bail over the objection of prosecutors because of his lawyer’s assurances that the former executive would observe his unusually strict bail conditions - which included surrendering his passports, barring him from seeing his wife Carole or using the internet outside his lawyers’ office.
“But this trust was betrayed and even this high bail didn’t prevent him from fleeing the country,” Takai said.
Tokyo-based lawyer Stephen Givens said Japan’s political right is using Ghosn’s flight to say, “See, we caved in to Western demands and look what happened.”
Still, Givens said the Ghosn case likely won’t reverse the recent trend of greater willingness to grant bail, as Japan was becoming more sensitive to foreign criticism.
The bold escape “may provide grounds for a backlash but only in very unusual cases,” he said.
Reporting by Linda Sieg; Additional reporting by Tim Kelly; Writing by William Mallard; Editing by Neil Fullick
TOKYO (Reuters) - The imposing home where Carlos Ghosn lived for the last seven months and probably launched a daring escape to avoid Japanese prosecutors is nestled in a leafy enclave of Tokyo where most people pay little attention to Westerners or luxury cars.
A view of a house where is believed that former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn lived before he fled to Lebanon, in Tokyo, Japan January 1, 2020. REUTERS/Tim Kelly
Yet neighbors say it was impossible not to notice one of the world’s most famous executives, or the black car that seemed to idle nearby whenever he was around - a stark reminder of the surveillance on the ousted Nissan Motor Co chairman while out on bail for financial misconduct charges.
Ghosn on Tuesday said he had fled to Lebanon to escape a “rigged” justice system in Japan, an astonishing revelation that raises questions about how one of the world’s most-recognized businessmen slipped past authorities, especially after he had surrendered his passports under the terms of his bail.
Hana Takeda, who lives in an apartment close to the house where Ghosn has lived since May, said she would sometimes see him out walking with one of his three daughters.
“He wasn’t very secretive. I would see him hanging around with his daughter,” Takeda, 28, told Reuters.
The large, multi-level house is not far from the central Roppongi district in an area popular with diplomats and western executives.
There is a police presence because of the proximity of at least one embassy and houses for diplomats. Many homes had western luxury cars parked outside, including BMWs, Land Rovers and Bentleys.
Three wireless security cameras peered out from the balcony above the brick porch. Under the terms of his bail, Ghosn had to have cameras installed at the house’s entrance.
No one came to the door when a Reuters reporter rang the doorbell. A double garage was shut and net curtains were drawn across the windows. Upper floor windows were covered by blinds.
A policeman on a bicycle made regular rounds through the small neighborhood.
Another neighbor, 62-year-old American Whitney Rich, said he had sometimes noticed a black car near the house.
Ghosn was initially arrested in Tokyo in November 2018 and faces four charges, which he denies. They include hiding income and enriching himself through payments to Middle East dealerships.
It seems unlikely he will now stand trial in Tokyo as Japan has no extradition treaty with Lebanon.
AUDACIOUS ACCOUNT
It was unclear how Ghosn, who holds French, Brazilian and Lebanese citizenship, was able to orchestrate his departure from Japan. He entered Lebanon legally on a French passport, one source has told Reuters.
In one audacious account from Lebanese TV news channel MTV, which Reuters has not been able to verify, a group of musicians arrived at Ghosn’s Tokyo house, performed and then packed up their instruments with him inside one of the larger cases. He was then whisked to the airport and out of the country with the help of privately hired security.
What is clear is that Ghosn was tightly monitored - a fact that has made his escape all the more spectacular. Authorities had monitored and restricted his movement and communications to prevent him, they said, from fleeing or tampering with evidence.
There always seemed to be a car at the end of the street near Ghosn’s house, said one Western expat who had lived in the area for nine months.
Slideshow (2 Images)
“He kept a low profile... There was a car parked constantly nearby,” the expat said, declining to be identified.
“He was under constant surveillance.”
Reporting by Tim Kelly and Maki Shiraki; Writing by David Dolan
