TOKYO: A lawyer for former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn said on Saturday that he felt outraged and betrayed by his client’s escape from Japan to Lebanon, but also expressed an understanding for his feelings of not being able to get a fair trial.

“My anger gradually began to turn to something else,” Takashi Takano wrote in his blog post.

Referring to Japan’s judicial system, he said, I was betrayed, but the one who betrayed me is not Carlos Ghosn.” Takano described how Ghosn had been barred from seeing his wife, in what Takano called a violation of human rights, and how Ghosn worried whether he would get a fair trial because of prosecutors’ leaks to the media and the prospect that the legal process may take years.

Ghosn, who was awaiting trial in Japan on financial misconduct charges, was last seen on surveillance video leaving his Tokyo home alone on Dec 29, presumably to board his getaway plane.

Although the security cameras at his home were on 24 hours a day, the footage was only required to be submitted to the court once a month, on the 15th, according to lawyers’ documents detailing Ghosn’s bail conditions.

Takano, the main lawyer on Ghosn’s team in charge of his bail, acknowledged that most suspects would not be able to pull off an escape like Ghosn’s.

But if they could, they certainly would have tried, he said.

Takano said he told Ghosn that in all the cases he has handled, there has been none in which the evidence was so scant, and that the chances for winning an innocent verdict were good, even if the trial was not fair.

Takano said the last time he saw Ghosn was Christmas Eve, when he was sitting in on the one-hour video call between Ghosn and his wife, Carole.

Under the bail conditions, a lawyer’s presence is required for the calls, and the length of the call is also restricted.

Takano, who is fluent in English, quoted Ghosn as expressing his unfailing love for his family, ending the call with an I love you.” Ghosn is known for never having missed a Christmas with his family despite the arduous schedule of an auto executive.

Takano said he had never before felt such disgust over Japan’s legal system.

He apologised to Ghosn after the call, saying he felt shame, and promised to do his utmost in the court case.

Ghosn did not reply, Takano recalled in the blog post, which says the opinions are his own and not of the entire legal team.

The major Japanese daily Sankei reported Saturday that Ghosn’s flight took off just as a private security company hired by Nissan Motor Co. to keep watch over Ghosn stopped work. Ghosn had been preparing a complaint against the security company, according to Sankei.

Another lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, has complained that spying on his client was a violation of human rights, but he declined to say who might be behind it.

Nissan was closed for the holidays and not immediately available for comment. Sankei said Nissan was worried the surveillance conditions set by the Japanese court weren’t sufficient to keep tabs on Ghosn.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2020