The usually staid Japanese media yesterday criticized “cowardly” former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn after the tycoon jumped bail and fled to Lebanon to avoid trial in Japan.
Ghosn is facing multiple charges of financial misconduct — all of which he denies.
“Running away is a cowardly act that mocks Japan’s justice system,” the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
By leaving the nation, Ghosn has “lost the opportunity to prove his innocence and vindicate his honor,” the newspaper said, adding that the court, his defense lawyers and immigration control officials also bore some blame in the affair.
The Tokyo Shimbun also said that Ghosn’s actions had made a mockery of the Japanese justice system.
“The defendant Ghosn insists he escaped political persecution ... but traveling abroad without permission is against the conditions of his bail and mocks the Japanese justice system,” it wrote. “There is a high probability that the trial will not be held and his argument that he wants to prove his innocence is now in question.”
Some media said that the decision to give him bail — seen by some as unusual at the time — now looks unwise.
Prosecutors had argued at the time that he was a flight risk with powerful connections, but Ghosn himself had said he wanted to be tried to prove his innocence.
One of his defense lawyers at the time said that he was such a famous face there was no chance he would be able to slip away undetected.
The Sankei Shimbun said that prosecutors believed the court had yielded to “foreign pressure” by offering him bail, amid widespread criticism in the global media of Japan’s “hostage justice system” that allows for lengthy and repeated detention.
A court in December 2018 declined prosecutors’ request to extend Ghosn’s detention by 10 days — a surprising decision as the extension is usually almost automatic.
Ghosn was bailed twice — in March last year and then after he was rearrested in April.
“All of these were rare decisions,” the Sankei Shimbun said.
The Mainichi Shimbun quoted a senior prosecutor as saying: “This is what we predicted.”
“This has ruined the prosecutors’ painstaking work” of collecting evidence in Japan and abroad against him, the prosecutor said.
The Asahi Shimbun quoted a former Nissan executive voicing his disappointment at Ghosn’s actions.
“The entrepreneur who ran Nissan for so many years and was well-known internationally turns out to be this kind of person. My jaw hit the floor. I can’t find the words to express myself,” the former executive said.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS