
Carlos Ghosn Flees Trial in Japan for Lebanese Homeland - olouv
https://www.wsj.com/articles/carlos-ghosn-arrives-in-lebanon-after-fleeing-japan-11577741238
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BrentOzar
I wonder if the Japanese authorities didn’t just decide the case against him
wasn’t strong enough (or that his lawyers were fighting it too hard) and they
might jeopardize their legendary 99% conviction rates, and they decided to
look the other way while he “escaped.”

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audiometry
Dunno why being downvoted for this. Makes perfect sense. I'm surprised the guy
didn't flee earlier -- his bail money (~$15mn) would be a pittance. Pity his
poor lieutenant left behind though. Nasty business.

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closeparen
Surely they didn’t let him keep his passport; how is he crossing borders?

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internet_user
Almost certainly a newly issued Lebanese passport.

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CrazyCatDog
You don’t need a valid passport to land in Beirut, at least that’s my lived
experience.

I have dual citizenship, I was born in XX. Our Lebanese passports had expired,
so my mother and I used our XX passports to fly into Beirut several years
ago—I purchased a visa upon touching down, but boarder control insisted I
return it, they recognized my last name [1]. Leaving two days later without
being able to produce evidence of military service (I was 17 at the time) was
a nightmare, and the XX government would not help seeing as how this was not
their problem (the curse of a dual citizenship), but I got lucky (see [1]).
Come to think of it, Lebanon was in such disarray at the time, it would have
been nearly impossible to renounce my Lebanese citizenship—even today, I have
no idea what the first step would be.

[1] I’m no Ghosn, but my grandfather had toyed with the idea of running for
federal office in Lebanon at the time.

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internet_user
If you can trust the news, he travelled on a French passport plus a Lebanese
ID.

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tibbydudeza
I can't blame him.

The Japanese justice system is messed up ... long detention periods to induce
confessions and then not allowed to see your family is just so cruel.

So I take their conviction rate of 99% with a rather large bag of salt.

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Traster
I would love to see a real deep dive on what happened with Ghosn. All I've
heard about is snippets of Japan being unhappy that the alliance looked likely
to end up with Nissan being a susbidiary of Renault rather than vice versa,
then there's all these accusations of corruption - which probably aren't
completely unfoundeed, but could easily just be a pretext. It feels like
someone could write a full "Bad Blood" style piece about all the twists and
turns and it'd be really interesting.

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anthony_doan
> It feels like someone could write a full "Bad Blood" style piece about all
> the twists and turns and it'd be really interesting.

You're not wrong.

He was hailed as the savior of Nissan and there were a manga of him about it
IIRC. He saved Nissan in the 90s and turned that company around. I've stopped
follow car news after 2010s and have stopped fawning over Nissan. But the fall
of him is really weird I've no clue what's going on but very crazy 180 turn of
event of recent years.

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zadkey
The Japanese conviction rate is the highest in the world, higher than
dictatorships that coerce confessions through beatings. No one should
reasonably expect a fair trial in Japan.

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justinclift
[https://archive.is/2tAtr](https://archive.is/2tAtr)

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elfexec
Homeland? Pretty sure Carlos Ghosn was born in brazil.

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kinow
I remember reading about him in Brazil while I was graduating. He is
definitely born in Brazil, but I think he has another citizenship too.
Wikipedia says

>is a Brazilian-born French businessman of Lebanese ancestry.

And

>Nationality French–Lebanese–Brazilian

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gregoriol
The guy doesn't have balls, he has passports

