UN says Ghosn entitled to reparations for ‘arbitrary’ detention in Japan

The UN says former boss of carmaker Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, is entitled to compensation from Japan because his detention there lacked legal grounds and ran counter to fair trial rules.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said this in a report that was published on Monday in Geneva.

“The deprivation of liberty of Carlos Ghosn from Nov. 19, 2018 to March 5, 2019 and from April 4, 2019 to April 25 2019 … was arbitrary,” the panel of UN human rights experts said in the report.

Ghosn, who once led the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Motors alliance, was arrested in November 2018 and has been charged with breach of trust and falsifying financial documents to under-report his income for years.

The manager, who was detained four times had spent a total 130 days in Japanese detention but fled the country to Lebanon in late December 2019 while free on bail.

The ex-boss of Nissan, who holds Brazilian, Lebanese and French citizenship, has denied all charges.

The four independent rights experts who make up the Working Group criticised the fact that the manager was detained four times.

“The repeated arrest of Mr Ghosn appears to be an abuse of process intended to ensure that he remained in custody,” the experts wrote, adding that this procedure prevented him from communicating with his lawyer.

They said that there was also evidence indicating that he was forced to make statements regarding the allegations against him.

The experts from Australia, Latvia, South Korea and Zambia concluded that “the appropriate remedy would be to accord Mr Ghosn an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.”