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Japan Defends Its Justice System After Carlos Ghosn’s Flight Japan Defends Its Justice System After Carlos Ghosn’s Flight
(about 4 hours later)
TOKYO — Japanese officials on Sunday said they would tighten immigration procedures and defended the country’s justice system, as they broke their silence on Carlos Ghosn’s dramatic and mysterious escape from Tokyo last week. TOKYO — Japanese officials on Sunday defended the country’s justice system as fair and open and condemned Carlos Ghosn’s flight from criminal charges there, as its courts are put under a global spotlight for their treatment of suspects and a near-perfect conviction record by prosecutors.
In a statement issued near the end of the country’s weeklong New Year’s holiday, Masako Mori, Japan’s justice minister, said officials would investigate how Mr. Ghosn, the former automotive executive, fled the country. She said Japanese officials would tighten the processes through which people leave the country, without disclosing details. In a statement issued near the end of the country’s weeklong New Year’s holiday, Masako Mori, Japan’s justice minister, said officials would investigate how Mr. Ghosn, the former automotive executive, fled the country last week. She said Japanese officials would tighten the processes through which people leave the country, though she disclosed no details.
“Since no record has been found that he left Japan, he may have left the country using illegal measures,” she said in the statement. “It’s truly regrettable.” “Since no record has been found that he left Japan, he may have left the country using illegal measures,” Ms. Mori said in the statement. “It’s truly regrettable.”
Takahiro Saito, deputy chief prosecutor for the city of Tokyo, said in a separate statement on Sunday that Mr. Ghosn “broke his own word” by jumping bail and leaving Japan.Takahiro Saito, deputy chief prosecutor for the city of Tokyo, said in a separate statement on Sunday that Mr. Ghosn “broke his own word” by jumping bail and leaving Japan.
Mr. Saito said Mr. Ghosn, who faced criminal charges of financial wrongdoing, would have received a fair and open trial, countering Mr. Ghosn’s intense criticism of the country’s justice system. Mr. Saito said Mr. Ghosn, who faces criminal charges of financial wrongdoing, would have received a fair and open trial, responding to Mr. Ghosn’s intense criticism of the country’s justice system.
“The act can never be justified,” Mr. Saito said.“The act can never be justified,” Mr. Saito said.
The comments marked the first public response by the Japanese government since Mr. Ghosn escaped to Lebanon early last week. Mr. Ghosn, the former chief of Nissan, the Japanese automaker, has long maintained his innocence, saying he was set up by underlings who worried that he would essentially combine one of the crown jewels of Japan’s auto industry with its French partner, Renault. The comments were the first public response by Japan’s government since Mr. Ghosn escaped to Lebanon early last week. Mr. Ghosn, the former chief of Nissan, the Japanese automaker, has long maintained his innocence, saying that he was set up by underlings who worried that he would essentially combine one of the crown jewels of Japan’s auto industry with its French partner, Renault.
Mr. Ghosn’s flight from Japan has put a global spotlight on the Japanese justice system, where prosecutors win 99 percent of their cases and have broad powers to detain and interview suspects outside the presence of their lawyers. Mr. Ghosn’s dramatic escape from Japan has put the country’s legal system itself on trial, at least in the realm of public opinion. “I have not fled justice,” he said in a statement last week. “I have escaped injustice and political persecution.”
Before he made 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. Japanese defense attorneys have long complained that the system is stacked against them. Prosecutors win 99 percent of their cases. They enjoy broad powers to interview suspects without the presence of their lawyers. And many legal experts say the system depends too much on confessions extracted under heavy pressure.
People familiar with his thinking said he had grown increasingly alarmed over the possibility that he could spend the rest of his life facing charges in Japan, as Japanese prosecutors sought to try him on his four charges of financial wrongdoing in stages, rather than all at once. In that environment, Mr. Ghosn’s case presented a quandary for prosecutors, said Steven Davidoff Solomon, a professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Law.
Mr. Saito on Sunday defended the system. He said that Mr. Ghosn had been guaranteed a swift trial in an open court, and that prosecutors must prove their allegations beyond a reasonable doubt to win a conviction. “Japan has a system where everyone pleads guilty,” he said.
Conviction rates are high in Japan, Mr. Saito acknowledged in his statement. But he said that “I’m confident that fair trials are carried out in which the courts allow defendants to make their claims adequately, and can judge from a strictly independent stance whether cases have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” 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.”
Mr. Saito on Sunday defended the system. He said that Mr. Ghosn had been guaranteed a swift trial in an open court, and that prosecutors must prove their allegations to win a conviction.
Conviction rates are high in Japan, Mr. Saito acknowledged in his statement. But he said he was “confident that fair trials are carried out in which the courts allow defendants to make their claims adequately, and can judge from a strictly independent stance whether cases have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“In this case,” he added, “prosecutors have been implementing the appropriate procedures as stipulated by the law and have been proceeding with the investigation and preparation for trials while guaranteeing the rights of Ghosn, the defendant.”“In this case,” he added, “prosecutors have been implementing the appropriate procedures as stipulated by the law and have been proceeding with the investigation and preparation for trials while guaranteeing the rights of Ghosn, the defendant.”
Mr. Saito also defended the strict limits on Mr. Ghosn’s conduct while he was on bail, citing his personal wealth and his connections both in Japan and around the world. Mr. Saito also defended the strict limits on Mr. Ghosn’s conduct while on bail, citing his wealth and his connections in Japan and around the world.
“As Ghosn has ample funds and a number of bases abroad, it was easy to escape,” he said. “He also has various human networks and a huge amount of influence both inside and outside Japan, so there was a realistic danger of concealing and destroying the evidence.”“As Ghosn has ample funds and a number of bases abroad, it was easy to escape,” he said. “He also has various human networks and a huge amount of influence both inside and outside Japan, so there was a realistic danger of concealing and destroying the evidence.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Ghosn issued a statement saying he had fled to Lebanon, where he was largely raised, and “will no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant, and basic human rights are denied, in flagrant disregard of Japan’s legal obligations under international law and treaties it is bound to uphold. As Mr. Ghosn’s flight put the Japanese justice system under a spotlight, it also has put critics of the system in a difficult position. However unfair the process might be, Mr. Ghosn defied it by fleeing, an offense that would invite harsh punishment in any country.
“I have not fled justice — I have escaped injustice and political persecution,” it said. “It’s certain that Japan’s legal system has some big problems from the standpoint of guaranteeing human rights,” Takashi Yamaguchi, a lawyer who famously defended an artist who was arrested on obscenity charges, said in a Twitter post, “but the place he ought to have made his criticisms was a Japanese court, not Lebanon.”
How Mr. Ghosn eluded Japanese authorities remains mostly a mystery. Local media outlets have reported that surveillance cameras showed him leaving his rental home in a well-to-do neighborhood in central Tokyo by himself on Dec. 29. Mark Karpelès, an entrepreneur who fought his own yearslong battle in Japanese courts, said Mr. Ghosn might have lost an opportunity to change the system from within. Mr. Karpelès, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, was ultimately found guilty on a charge of falsifying data, which he is appealing, and received a suspended sentence of two and a half years in prison.
After that, media reports have said, he boarded a private jet in Osaka and flew to Istanbul, where he boarded a second plane and flew to Beirut. Despite the broad powers granted to prosecutors, “the judges are still impartial,” Mr. Karpelès said, adding that “it’s possible to prove your innocence in a Japanese court. I’ve been there, done that.”
The New York Times, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported on Friday that Mr. Ghosn was accompanied out of Japan by an American security consultant named Michael Taylor, a former Green Beret. Turkish media outlets have reported that Mr. Taylor and another American were the only people listed as passengers on a manifest for the flight that carried Mr. Ghosn from Japan to Turkey. Mr. Karpelès said he had met Mr. Ghosn socially in Tokyo on a handful of occasions, most recently in November at a dinner that was attended by Japanese politicians. Mr. Karpelès declined to name the other attendees.
On Friday, MNG Jet, an aircraft charter company, said one of its employees had falsified records to remove Mr. Ghosn’s name from the official documentation for two flights. During that dinner, Mr. Karpelès said in an interview on Sunday, there were discussions of how Mr. Ghosn’s case could help address some of the shortcomings of Japan’s justice system.
Mr. Ghosn was once hailed as a corporate hero in Japan for the way he turned around Nissan. Born in Brazil to parents of Lebanese descent and educated in France, Mr. Ghosn in 1999 was assigned by Renault to turn around Nissan, in which the French company had bought a sizable stake. Mr. Ghosn slashed costs at Nissan, turning it into a success and making him one of the most visible executives in the auto industry. “There was hope that Carlos Ghosn would help move things in the right direction,” he said, adding that “some people were trying to build something around this to improve the system.”
Now, he wonders whether other suspects might have a harder time getting out of custody on bail. Being released on bail is a “basic requirement” for defending oneself, said Mr. Karpelès, who was detained for almost a year.
“That’s why I’m disappointed,” he said.
“I don’t think the court will be so inclined to let people be free on bail in the future.”
Emily Flitter contributed reporting from New York.