Tokyo – Japan said on Friday that a vice minister for justice is to travel to Lebanon to discuss the case of ousted Nissan Motor chief Carlos Ghosn.
Ghosn, who fled for his home country in 2019 in a stunning escape from justice.
Justice Minister Masako Mori told a news conference that she was sending Hiroyuki Yoshiie to Beirut for talks with Lebanese government officials as Tokyo is seeking Ghosn’s re-arrest on financial misconduct charges.
Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan.
“We would like Lebanon to have a proper understanding of Japan’s criminal justice system.
“We would also like to strengthen cooperation in the legal and judicial fields,’’ Mori said.
Yoshiie is expected to meet with Lebanon’s Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm on Monday, Kyodo News reported.
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 charge are baseless,” Ghosn told a news conference in Beirut in early January.
“I fled injustice and persecution, political persecution (in Japan),’’ said Ghosn, who spent a total of 130 days in Japanese detention.
He fled the country in late December while free on bail.
(dpa/NAN)