Accused of financial embezzlement and abuse of power by the Japanese justice system, the deposed Renault – Nissan boss, Carlos Ghosn, fled Japan on December 30, 2019 to take refuge in Beirut. And to this day, the reasons for his flight from Japan have remained a mystery to all.
In Tokyo, the trial of Michael Taylor and his son Peter, accused of having participated in the daring exfiltration of Carlos Ghosn from Japan at the end of 2019, opened on Monday, June 14. And the two Americans immediately recognized the facts.
According to AFP, the two defendants arrived in court handcuffed, dressed in black jackets and white shirts, and masked due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In details, the same source specifies that Michael Taylor, 60, a former member of the US special forces converted to private security, was very calm alongside his son Peter Taylor, 28, noting that the two defendants did not dispute facts presented by a prosecutor.
In May 2020, they were arrested in the United States, under arrest warrants issued by Tokyo, before being extradited to Japan last March for trial. They had also exhausted all possible remedies in the United States and face up to three years in prison for the acts with which they are accused.
It should be recalled that on the morning of December 31, 2019, Japan learned of the flight to Lebanon of its most famous defendant, the former boss of their automotive alliance with France, Carlos Ghosn. The latter was free on bail pending trial for alleged financial embezzlement, with the ban on leaving the country.
Two days earlier, wearing a hat, mask and glasses to avoid being recognized, the Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian Carlos Ghosn had quietly left his home in Tokyo to reach Osaka (west) by taking the shinkansen (Japanese high-speed train) .
From surveillance images, the two men accompanying him were identified. They were Michael Taylor and George-Antoine Zayek, a man of Lebanese origin who has so far remained untraceable.
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