Michael and Peter Taylor were sentenced to 24 and 20 months in prison, respectively. The two American citizens, father and son, were accused by the Japanese judicial system, then found guilty, of helping Carlos Ghosn escape from the Asian country, where he was on probation, between December 30 and 31, 2019.
The sentence was handed down by a Tokyo court. Michael, 60, a former member of the US Special Forces, and Peter Taylor, 28, were arrested in the United States and later extradited to Japan.
In June, the two Americans admitted involvement in Ghosn’s escape and pleaded guilty. On that occasion, Taylor Sr., answering yes when the prosecutor asked him if he thought Ghosn should stay in Japan, said: “I spent more than 400 days in prison and I had a long time to think. In my opinion, yes. “
The prosecutor reconstructed the fact that the two men hid Ghosn in a crate for transporting musical instruments on a private plane that then made a stopover in Istanbul.
They knew, according to the indictment, that they were breaking the law: the suspicion is also that they were paid $ 1.5 million for their support. A cousin of Ghosn is the sister-in-law of Taylor’s father’s wife and the godmother of her son.
Ghosn, former head of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, was arrested as soon as he landed in Japan in November 2018, on suspicion of committing financial crimes. He was released on bail a few months later on probation and an expatriation ban.
The circumstances of the escape, never fully clarified so far, leave room for an accusatory hypothesis of a rather complex operation, which lasted two days, to make the former manager escape the surveillance to which he was subjected in the Asian country.
Until the Tokyo prosecutor’s office hypothesized that it had been hidden in a box for musical instruments and then boarded a private plane. Ghosn also has Lebanese (as well as French and Brazilian) citizenship, and Beirut has no extradition treaty with Tokyo.
Through Interpol, the Japanese authorities have issued an international arrest warrant. For his part, the former number one of Nissan and Renault has always denied the allegations challenged by the Japanese judiciary.
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