By jumping bail, former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who had long insisted on his innocence, has now committed a clear crime and can never return to Japan without going to jail.
"So he now has burnt his bridges to Japan," Stephen Givens, a lawyer and expert on Japan's legal and corporate systems, said Wednesday. "This is going to end in basically a stalemate with him spending the rest of his life in Lebanon."
Ghosn had been out on bail while awaiting trial on various financial misconduct allegations. The trial was expected to start in April. The date had not been set. His lawyer Junichiro Hironaka denied all knowledge of the escape, saying he was stunned. He said he didn't expect Ghosn to return to Japan. Lebanon's minister for presidential affairs, Selim Jreissati, told the An-Nahar newspaper that Ghosn entered legally at the airport with a French passport and Lebanese ID.Speculation is rife that a foreign or Japanese government, or both, might have been involved, or maybe just looked the other way to allow the escape to rid the public of a potentially embarrassing trial.But a trial is still pending against Nissan as a company and Greg Kelly, another Nissan executive.
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