A Japanese court on Monday sentenced two Americans who helped former Nissan-Renault president Carlos Ghosn, accused of various financial crimes, to flee the country in December 2019. Michael Taylor, 60, has been sentenced to two years from prison, while his son Peter, 28, to one year and eight months.
The two have pleaded guilty and apologized for their role in the escape, according to the Kiodo agency.
Ghosn, a French, Lebanese and Brazilian national, was arrested in November 2018 for allegedly hiding part of his income and passing on losses from his personal investments to the car company. He had been free on bail since April 2019 and his trial was scheduled for April 2020.
The flight to Lebanon began at Carlos Ghosn's residence in Tokyo, on the afternoon of December 29, from which the businessman left on foot despite being monitored by security cameras. He walked 800 meters to a nearby hotel, where two people were waiting for him. The three of them went to Shinagawa station. There they took a high-speed train to Osaka, where they arrived in three hours. They stayed at a hotel near Kansai International Airport. The two companions left the establishment with two large chests and without a trace of Ghosn. The two boxes, too bulky for the airport scanner, were shipped on a private plane bound for Istanbul. Once in the Turkish city, Ghosn boarded another private flight to Beirut, where he entered legally thanks to a local identity document.
"This case allowed Ghosn, accused of a serious crime, to escape," Chief Judge Hideo Nirei said. "A year and a half has passed, but there is no forecast that Ghosn can be tried," he added. The businessman is still held in Lebanon, his native country, which does not have an extradition treaty with Japan.
