TOKYO (AFP) — Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn said on Thursday (Jan 31) that his ongoing detention would «not be normal in any other democracy of the world» as he insisted he was a victim of «betrayal» by his former firm..
TOKYO (AFP) — A once-revered auto tycoon who flew around the world in a private jet and sat at the helm of three huge car companies, Carlos Ghosn’s journey to a Japanese cell is one of the most precipitous downfalls in corporate history.
Ghosn’s life was turned upside down on Nov 19 when Japanese prosecutors stormed his aircraft brandishing multiple accusations of financial misconduct, and whisking him off to the Tokyo detention centre where he has languished ever since.
It was from this centre he gave a combative interview to AFP and a French newspaper, charging that refusal to grant him bail “would not be normal in any other democracy of the world».
In the space of two months, the 64-year-old has been sacked from Japanese car giants Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors and resigned from French manufacturer Renault. He has already lost his business empire. But the battle to clear his name is just beginning.
Totally at ease among the champagne receptions of the world’s elite at Davos and on the red carpet at the Cannes film festival, Ghosn came to epitomise “globalisation”.
A polyglot and holder of three passports, he wrote in an autobiography that “just as globalisation and identity describe Nissan, they also perfectly express my life».
Born Carlos Ghosn Bichara in Brazil on March 9,1954, to Lebanese parents, he moved as a toddler back to Lebanon where he was educated in a multicultural Jesuit school by teachers from France, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.
