TOKYO—With his daring escape from Tokyo, Carlos Ghosn has made it nearly impossible for Japanese courts to move ahead with what was supposed to be the trial of the century.
Japanese criminal law in general doesn’t allow a defendant to be tried in absentia, except in limited circumstances that don’t apply to the Ghosn case, former prosecutor Yoji Ochiai said.
“He shouldn’t have been granted bail in the first place, given that he was denying all charges and he didn’t have base for living in Japan,” said Mr. Ochiai. “This was the court’s mistake.”
People involved in the case had suggested a trial could begin as soon as April 2020. Now that is postponed indefinitely because Mr. Ghosn, the former Nissan Motor Co. chairman, is in Lebanon, which doesn’t have any extradition procedures to send suspects to Japan.
Mr. Ghosn was charged with financial crimes including hiding plans for future compensation and directing Nissan money to be spent for his personal benefit. He said he was innocent of all the charges.
Mr. Ghosn’s decision to flee Japan for Lebanon provides, on the surface, a level of short-term legal protection, given that the country doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Japan, though that doesn’t rule out a political deal outside a formal legal process.
Still, Lebanon may be safer for Mr. Ghosn than many other countries. Mr. Ghosn grew up in Lebanon and is still popular there. Billboards went up around Beirut around the time of his 2018 arrest in Japan, saying: “We are all Carlos Ghosn.”
Lebanon’s current political situation could also help. A deeply sectarian government has been thrown into chaos after former Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned after months of street protests. A new prime minister designate has yet to form a government, leaving open the question of who would deal with any extradition effort.
Lebanese law allows for citizens, like Mr. Ghosn, to be prosecuted for crimes committed overseas, as long as the offense is a crime in Lebanon, too. Given his popularity and the political stalemate in Beirut, political or popular appetite for such a legal move is unclear, even if it were applicable to Mr. Ghosn’s case.
Still, a new government in Beirut could face international pressure. Salim Jreissati, minister of state for presidential affairs, was quoted in An-Nahar, a Lebanese daily, saying he has told Japanese officials previously that Mr. Ghosn should be handed over to Lebanon and tried according to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, to which Lebanon is a signatory. Mr. Jreissati couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Japanese prosecutors started with the element of surprise against Mr. Ghosn, arresting him after he arrived in Tokyo on a Gulfstream jet the evening of Nov. 19, 2018. But on Tuesday, it was Mr. Ghosn who had surprise on his side, as Japan woke up to a six-day holiday stretch to learn that its most famous defendant had skipped town.
Guards at the Tokyo prosecutors’ office said none of the media staff showed up for work Tuesday, and the phones rang unanswered. The Tokyo District Court told local media it hadn’t changed the terms of Mr. Ghosn’s bail but had nothing to say about how he got away.
Even Mr. Ghosn’s own lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, was surprised. Mr. Hironaka said he had seen Mr. Ghosn as recently as Christmas Day and didn’t have any inkling that his client was preparing to escape until he saw on the news that Mr. Ghosn was in Lebanon.
Mr. Hironaka said it was technically a breach of bail conditions if Mr. Ghosn left the country without the court’s permission, but he said Mr. Ghosn had reason to mistrust Japanese justice.
“I think there were a lot of points that were unacceptable if you look at it from Mr. Ghosn’s eyes,” Mr. Hironaka said. The lawyer cited Mr. Ghosn’s initial detention, which included weeks of interrogation without a lawyer present, and more recently court restrictions on his contact with his wife, Carole.
Mr. Ghosn said he didn’t think he could get a fair trial in Japan because “guilt is presumed” in the justice system. “I have not fled justice—I have escaped injustice and political persecution,” he said.
Japanese officials had said they believed Mr. Ghosn would get a fair trial. One sign that Tokyo District Court judges were open to considering Mr. Ghosn’s point of view, ironically enough, was their decision to grant him release on bail twice—each time over vociferous objections by prosecutors that he was a flight risk and might destroy evidence.
To win his release, Mr. Ghosn’s lawyers agreed in April to a list of 15 restrictions. He had to hand over his Lebanese, Brazilian and French passports—which Mr. Hironaka said Tuesday he still had—and he agreed to 24-hour camera monitoring at the entrance of his court-approved Tokyo residence. However, Mr. Ghosn’s team didn’t have to turn over each month’s video records until the 15th of the following month.
Reaction in much of Japan was subdued, and some expressed the view that the country might be better off without having to go through a trial that would air Nissan’s dirty laundry in the same year that Tokyo is playing host to the Summer Olympics.
“We wanted it to stop,” said one person close to Nissan. “In Japan, New Year’s is about driving evil spirits out of the house. In that way it’s the perfect story for New Year’s.” A Nissan representative declined to comment.
Others called the escape an embarrassment for the legal system.
“It is the biggest failure in the history of criminal justice in Japan,” said Chuko Hayakawa, a lawyer and former ruling-party member of Parliament. “It shows that Ghosn didn’t respect the Japanese justice system, the courts and his own lawyers.”
Mr. Hayakawa said Japan, which has a fast-growing population of foreigners and rising tourism, needed to update its justice system to prevent such escapes.
Mr. Ochiai, the former prosecutor, said: “There may be more discussion about incorporating GPS or other high technology into the system to monitor suspects more closely.”
Related
- Carlos Ghosn Flees Trial in Japan for Lebanon
- Nissan-Renault Alliance Starts to Crack Without Carlos Ghosn (Dec. 25)
- Nissan Audit Chief Sought to Expand Ghosn Probe and Was Shut Down (Oct. 4)
- Carlos Ghosn Ran a Tech Fund—Using Millions From an Executive at a Nissan Partner (Aug. 26)
- Why Carlos Ghosn Fell: Plotters at Nissan Feared a French Takeover (March 28)
- The Fall of the House of Ghosn (Dec. 16, 2018)
—Sean McLain contributed to this article.
Write to Megumi Fujikawa at megumi.fujikawa@wsj.com and Chieko Tsuneoka at chieko.Tsuneoka@dowjones.com
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