Ghosn Finally Allowed to Speak With Wife
Carlos Ghosn, former head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, has been allowed to see his wife Carole for the first time in seven months. Fortunately for Ghosn, the pair actually wanted to speak and had been complaining about this throughout their time apart. Indicted on various charges we’ve covered to death, Japanese courts decided last April that it was too big of a risk to let the couple interact. The fear was that the duo would somehow conspire or possibly tamper with evidence.
The suspension of their separation appears to be limited event, however. The Tokyo District Court only agreed to allow a single meeting after Ghosn’s legal council began pushing for softer bail conditions over the summer.
According to Automotive News, the couple was allowed to speak while being supervised by a lawyer and were explicitly forbade from discussing the legal case. Mrs. Ghosn last saw her spouse after he was (re)released in April, before being taken into back into custody. Since then, they’ve not been allowed to have any contact.
During their time apart, Carole has openly accused the Japanese government of having a “guilty until proven innocent” mentality, claiming its treatment of her husband is unacceptable — even comparing it to a hostage situation. One of her biggest criticisms is the amount of time it has taken the prosecution to build its case. She claims he was arrested without sufficient evidence and fears he’s being held until they find some. The solution, according to her, is to have him extradited to France in order to stand trial. She’s sought political support in Europe to make it happen.
“This court decision is valid only for this one time, and we are not sure if the court will grant another chance, going forward,” Ghosn’s lawyers said. “But we will continue to request that the court ease bail conditions to allow Ghosn to communicate or meet his wife.”
Carlos is currently facing four indictments following his initial November 2018 arrest in Japan. The first two are charges of failing to disclose more than $80 million in deferred compensation. The rest are breach of trust charges accusing Ghosn of intentionally diverting company money away from Nissan for personal gain.
He denies the charges against him, suggesting he was on the receiving end of an industrial coup to unseat him and his supporters. Guilty or innocent, that coup sort of came to pass with Nissan and Renault doing their utmost to remove anyone with ties to the former business leader. Now Ghosn just wants a firm trial date and access to the evidence the prosecution plans to use against him so he can build his own case. His legal team has faulted the prosecution with tampering with evidence by giving it back to Nissan. They’re also worried the company may dispose of potentially exonerating evidence.
“Tokyo prosecutors have repeatedly and systematically denied Mr. Ghosn fundamental rights of due process and turned the presumption of innocence on its head,” Ghosn’s legal team said in a statement to mark the one year anniversary of his arrest.
[Image: Nissan]
Consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulations. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, he has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed about the automotive sector by national broadcasts, participated in a few amateur rallying events, and driven more rental cars than anyone ever should. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and learned to drive by twelve. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer and motorcycles.
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"has been allowed to see his wife Carole for the first time in seven months" What a wonderful world we live in! With all my respect Japan still behaves as a third world country. Still hundred years or so behind of developed European and NA countries.
I used to travel to Japan quite often on business. The unspoken but harsh reality is, the Japanese as a people see themselves as being fundamentally superior to all other races. Non-Japanese are regarded as significantly inferior, as little better than animals, and thus not deserving of the same rights or respect as Japanese people. That is how they justify doing things that to us seem unspeakably barbaric as ravenchris shockingly described, or the inhumane treatment of Ghosn. There's a form of 'sashimi' called odori in which the fish are eaten while still alive. I would bet that they would see what ravenchris described as being closer to odori than the rest of us would like to think. If you're a 'gaijin', a non-Japanese, you can expect merciless, ruthless treatment from their legal system. The Japanese will no doubt concoct some rationale on which to convict him. As a gaijin, he most certainly will not get anything remotely resembling a 'fair trial' or 'due process' by US or European standards - look at how he's been treated so far. For alleged accounting irregularities, he's being treated more harshly than a violent mass murderer would be in the US or Europe. Their companies build damn fine cars, and I've been buying them almost exclusively for the past 30 years. But the moral is, you really, really, really don't want to tangle with the Japanese legal system if you're a non-Japanese person. You will not get a fair shake, you WILL lose, and you will pay a very painful price.