Carlos Ghosn escape: Former Nissan boss ‘took bullet train’ out of Tokyo
Carlos Ghosn’s escape from Tokyo to Beirut started with a three-hour ride on one of Japan’s famed bullet trains, according to Japanese media.
Nippon Television and TV Asahi reported that after strolling out of his rented house, the former Nissan chairman hopped on a bullet train at Shinagawa station in Tokyo at 4.30pm.
Read more: Carlos Ghosn met Lebanon’s President after fleeing Japan
The station is about 6km from where he had been under house arrest since April 2019.
If Ghosn did, indeed, use the high-speed rail link to get to the private jet which took him out of the country, it would raise further questions about how he evaded the authorities using public transport.
The disgraced businessman left the station more than two hours later in Osaka, and travelled to a hotel by taxi.
His escape took place on 29 December, one of Japan’s busiest days for public transport as hundreds of thousands of people cross the country to visit family for the New Year holiday.
Separately, Japan has said it could still press Lebanon to extradite Ghosn.
The ousted boss of Nissan and France’s Renault was forbidden from leaving Japan while awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct, which he denied. However he fled at the end of last year, saying he escaped a “rigged” justice system.
Japan’s justice minister Masako Mori said that as a general principle, Tokyo could possibly request extradition from a country with which it has no formal extradition agreement.
Such a request would need to be carefully examined based on the possibility of “guaranteeing reciprocity and the domestic law of the partner country,” she told reporters in Tokyo.
She did not elaborate on what would be required to guarantee Lebanon reciprocated.