Foreign
A Japanese court on Monday sentenced a father and son from the U.S. to two years imprisonment f0r helping auto executive Carlos Ghosn escaped pretrial detention in 2019, news agency Kyodo reported.
The Tokyo District Court c0nvicted Michael Taylor, 60 and his son Peter, 28.
In June, the two Americans had admitted their roles in Ghosn’s escape before a Tokyo court.
They pleaded guilty and apologised.
Their defence team had called for suspended sentences, Kyodo reported.
Ghosn, the former chairman of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi carmaking alliance, was arrested in Japan in 2018 on charges of under-reporting his salary and misusing company assets.
He was released a few months later into home arrest, but disappeared at the end of 2019 to reappear in Lebanon.
Ghosn has Lebanese citizenship. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan.
Prosecutors say the father and son duo hid Ghosn in a crate which was marked as containing musical instruments during the operation to smuggle him out of Japan in a private plane.
They charge that the two knew they were violating Japanese law in doing so.
Ghosn has denied all the initial charges against him and has never commented on how he got to Lebanon.
Japan has been trying to have Ghosn sent back ever since.
So far, Lebanon has only blocked Ghosn from travelling abroad.
Michael and Peter Taylor, were arrested in the U.S., which, however, does have an extradition arrangement with Japan.
NAN
– July 19, 2021 @ 09:48 GMT /
