Japan Defends Its Justice System After Carlos Ghosn’s Flight

“Japan has a system where everyone pleads guilty,” he said.

Before making bail, Mr. Ghosn, 65, was held in solitary confinement with limited access to his lawyers. Once released, he was not allowed to meet with his wife and was forbidden to use the internet outside his lawyers’ offices. Surveillance cameras watched him come and go from his Tokyo residence.

“The restrictions they were putting on him were extraordinary,” Professor Davidoff Solomon said, “for someone who is not a terrorist and not accused of a violent crime like a mass murder.”

People familiar with Mr. Ghosn’s thinking said he had grown increasingly alarmed over the possibility that he could spend the rest of his life facing charges in Japan, as prosecutors there sought to try him on his four charges of financial wrongdoing in stages rather than all at once.

Takashi Takano, a member of Mr. Ghosn’s legal team, wrote online that he had repeatedly explained to Mr. Ghosn that it would be difficult for him to get a fair trial, but that there was still a strong possibility the court would find him not guilty.

On Christmas Eve, Mr. Ghosn spoke to his wife for an hour, only their second conversation in months. When the couple said their goodbyes, Mr. Takano said, “I had never felt so disappointed in Japan’s justice system.”

When he heard that Mr. Ghosn had fled, “At first, a fierce fury welled up in me. I thought I had been betrayed,” Mr. Takano wrote.

But when he reflected on Mr. Ghosn’s situation, he said, “my anger turned in another direction.”

“I was certainly betrayed,” he said. “But the betrayal was not by Carlos Ghosn.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/business/japan-carlos-ghosn.html?emc=rss&partner=rss