Japanese Minister of Justice Masako Mori yesterday vowed to strengthen border departure checks and review bail conditions after Nissan’s former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, fled the country.
Mori told reporters at a news conference the ministry has already acted to prevent a recurrence, but declined to give details.
She was asked about reports that Ghosn had hidden in a box and that baggage checks at a regional airport might have been insufficient.
Photo: Bloomberg
Ghosn skipped bail while awaiting trial on various financial misconduct allegations and later said from Lebanon that he did it to escape injustice.
Mori declined to say who might be held responsible for such a high-profile flight, stressing it was still under investigation.
She said Ghosn left illegally, denouncing it as an “unjustifiable” crime.
“Japan’s justice system allows investigating the facts while it ensures the individual basic human rights at the same time,” Mori told reporters at the ministry. “It is set with appropriate procedures and it is operated appropriately.”
However, she acknowledged the case was being looked at under an ongoing review of the nation’s judicial system, including introducing electronic tethers to monitor those out on bail.
“We are aware of the criticisms,” Mori said, referring to human rights advocates’ descriptions of Japan’s legal system as “hostage justice.”
Ghosn and others say Japan’s system takes too long and is inhumane. Ghosn was banned from meeting with his wife while out on bail. Preparing for his trial has taken about a year, and a date has not been set.
Ghosn was detained, twice, for a total of 130 days before he was released on bail a second time.
Mori said each nation has its own judicial system and arrests are rarer in Japan than in other countries, suggesting arrests are made only when the authorities are fairly confident they have a case.
“Simple comparisons are misleading,” she said.
Details of Ghosn’s stunning escape last week are unclear, but Turkish airline company MNG Jet said two of its planes were used illegally, first flying him from Osaka, Japan, to Istanbul, and then on to Beirut, where he arrived on Monday last week and has not been seen since.
Ghosn promised to talk to reporters tomorrow.
Ghosn had been charged with under-reporting his future compensation and breach of trust in diverting Nissan money for his personal gain. He insists he is innocent.
His bail has been revoked, and Interpol has issued a wanted notice.
Japan does not have an extradition treaty with Lebanon, but Mori left open the possibility Japan could seek Ghosn’s return.
She did not give details and stressed that any retaliatory action, such as economic sanctions, must be decided on very carefully.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing