France has made an international arrest for Carlos Ghosn, the disgraced former boss of Nissan and Renault.
Authorities have issued the warrant against Ghosn and four others for more than 15m euros (£12.6m) in potentially suspicious payments linked to a car dealer in Oman.
Speaking to the BBC, Ghosn said he was “surprised” by the news.
As The Wall Street Journal first reported, a French magistrate investigating the case alleges that Ghosn funneled Renault funds to Suhail Bahwan Automobiles.
Reports add that he used the money to purchase personal items, such as a 120ft yacht.
Ghosn, who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian nationalities, cannot be extradited from his home in Beirut because Lebanon does not have an extradition policy in place with France.
His lawyer, Jean Tamalet at King and Spalding, told the BBC the arrest warrant is part of an investigation that has been going on for “some time”.
The other four warrants were for current owners and former directors of Suhail Bahwan Automobiles.
In 2019, Ghosn fled Japan for Lebanon after being detained for financial misconduct related to his time running Nissan. At the time, he was under house arrest.
As noted, his extravagant escape included his smuggling on a private plane inside a musical instrument case. Following his escape, he said he took the “enormous risk” because he wanted to fight injustice.
Ghosn has continued to maintain his innocence in media interviews, saying the charges were brought by Nissan executives to prevent him from possibly pushing through a full merger with Renault.
He said they wanted to “take me completely out of the picture; that meant putting me in jail.” He added: “Japan has become nationalistic. We were talking about the “re-Japanization” of Nissan. »
This was refuted by Nissan, who in 2020 told The Sunday Times that it had ‘conducted a robust and thorough internal investigation which included outside counsel’, uncovering ‘substantial and compelling evidence’ that Ghosn had ‘intentionally committed misconduct’. severe”.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-04-22 12:46:35
