1) This is a thread about former Nissan/Renault Chairman, Carlos Ghosn, who managed to escape from Japan while on bail for embezzlement charges, to Lebanon yesterday. I covered Nissan when he took over & turned it around from a bankrupt carmaker into the world's 6th largest.
2) The Tokyo Special Prosecutors Office (TSPO) had 2 years since they arrested Ghosn to charge him for alleged embezzlement. The TSPO prides itself on having a 99% conviction rate. This is mostly b/c Japanese admit to crimes when pressed (even if innocent), but Ghosn refused.
3) From the moment Ghosn was charged for embezzlement, I was suspicious. He was (a) a centi-millionaire, (b) close to France's President Macron, & (c) was facing a post in Macron's cabinet. Why would someone in Ghosn's position need to steal money from the company he headed?
4) In 2006, Takafumi Horie, CEO of a Japanese Internet company, was arrested for "securities fraud". He never pleaded guilty, appealed, & yet was still forced to spend 3yrs in jail until his release *7yrs* after being charged. Quite understandable why Ghosn chose to flee Japan.
5) At the time of Ghosn's arrest in Dec'17, the Tokyo Special Prosecutors Office had gone some 5yrs w/out having made any "big fish" arrests. They were under pressure. Nissan CEO Saikawa served Ghosn up to them in order to avoid a merger w/ Renault, for which Ghosn was pushing.
6) I've been cheering Ghosn on--under the assumption, he is innocent--for not giving in to the TSPO's pressure to confess to a crime he didn't commit. I personally think the statistic of the TSPO's 99% conviction rate is, in itself, very suspicious.
7) The Tokyo Special Prosecutors Office is very respectable. They're some of Japan's best & brightest & have jailed real scumbags. I just think they stretched a bit too far w/ Ghosn--who might not be an angel--but probably wasn't guilty of embezzlement.
I mistakenly wrote that Carlos Ghosn was arrested 2 years ago. It was actually Nov’18. Sorry for the mistake.
