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On Monday, the Lebanese judiciary decided to stop the prosecution of auto magnate Carlos Ghosn for the “crime” of visiting Israel “due to the passage of ten years since the alleged crime. Ghosn had defended his visit to Israel, saying it was in his capacity of “French based on an agreement signed between Renault and an Israeli company” and offered his apologies for the visit.
Ten years have passed since the accusation against him, the Lebanese judiciary has stopped persecuting the car tycoon Carlos Ghosn The “crime” of visiting Israel based on a report by three lawyers against him earlier this year, upon his arrival in Beirut after fleeing Japan.
In January, lawyers Hassan Bazzi, Jad Tohme and Ali Abbas filed a complaint against Ghosn for the crime of “entering Israel, dealing with the Israeli enemy and establishing business relations with him”, following a visit he made in 2008 as director of the French company Renault to sign a partnership agreement with a car company. Israeli.
After ten years, the case documents are kept
A judicial source said on Tuesday that “the cassation prosecutor, Judge Ghassan Oweidat, decided to keep the papers and not prosecute Ghosn in the crimes attributed to him in terms of entering the enemy country and attending him financially, due to the passage of time decimal after the alleged crime ”, that is, its fall over the passage of more than ten years.
During a press conference in Beirut after his controversial escape from Japan, Ghosn defended his visit, which included a meeting with former Israeli President Shimon Peres and other officials. He said he left as “French, according to an agreement signed between Renault and an Israeli company.” He apologized for the visit at the same time.
Ghosn has been in Beirut since 2019
The former head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance has been in Beirut since late 2019, after fleeing Japan, where he was arrested in November 2018 and spent 130 days in prison.
The Japanese judiciary charged the businessman who has Lebanese, French and Brazilian nationalities with four counts, including failing to declare all his income and using the Nissan money he had saved from bankruptcy to make payments to personal acquaintances and embezzling the funds of the company. company for personal use. The total unauthorized amount is more than 9 billion yen ($ 85 million) over eight years, according to Tokyo.
Ghosn denies the allegations outright. Japan demanded that Lebanon hand Ghosn over to complete his trial. However, the Beirut authorities asked Tokyo to hand it over with its judicial file, without having received it yet.
Ghosn consistently refuses to reveal the details of his extraordinary escape, which has caused quite a stir in Japan. The United States agreed in late October to hand over to Japan two Americans they suspected of helping Ghosn escape.
Ghosn is participating in a documentary and a short series about his life, according to a statement issued last month by the Saudi network “MBC” and the French “Alef One”, the two producers of the work.
France 24 / AFP
