The former CEO of Renault-Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, who denounced, on Wednesday, January 8, at a press conference organized in Beirut, a "mounted coup" against him in Japan, was summoned, Thursday, January 9, by the Lebanese Prosecutor's Office, in the context of a request for the arrest of Interpol and a request filed by lawyers concerning a trip to Israel, made in 2008.
The 65-year-old former industry captain, who is the subject of four charges in Japan, in particular for aggravated breach of trust, was summoned for an "interrogation (...) in order to listen to his testimony concerning the red notice "communicated to Interpol by Japan, according to the official Lebanese news agency ANI.
Holder of French, Lebanese and Brazilian nationalities, Carlos Ghosn fled Japan for Lebanon, which does not have an extradition agreement with Japan. Cedar said it had received a red notice from Interpol, which involves asking local authorities to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, but that - this has almost no chance of succeeding insofar as the country never extradits its nationals.
However, this procedure requires the Lebanese public prosecutor's office to summon the businessman. In short, justice is forced to hear him, but only he can decide to arrest him or to let him free. "Each member country decides on the legal value to be given to a red notice and whether or not to empower its law enforcement departments to make arrests in this connection," it said on the website. Interpol.
Lawyers to prosecute displacement to Israel
On Thursday, Carlos Ghosn will also give his "testimony" concerning a report submitted to Lebanese justice by Lebanese lawyers, "on his entry into enemy country and his meeting with a certain number of Israeli leaders", underlines the ANI agency.
"Having relations with Israel is not a matter of opinion, the law prohibits normalization," Hassan Bazzi, one of the three lawyers who filed a request with the prosecution, told AFP recently. who accuse him of having committed "the crime of entering an enemy country and of having violated the law of the boycott of Israel",
The country of the Cedars is technically still at war with the Hebrew State, since the signing of a cease-fire in 1949, and still claims territories in the south of the country, occupied by the Israeli army (the hamlets of Chebaa and the hills of Kfarchouba). And Beirut prohibits its nationals from going to Israel or having contacts in the Hebrew state.
While still in command of the Renault-Nissan alliance, Carlos Ghosn traveled to Israel in 2008 as part of a partnership for the launch of an electric car.
Shortly after his return to Lebanon, Internet users shared on social media a photo taken in 2008 in Jerusalem, showing him alongside the late Israeli President Shimon Peres.
In 2017, the famous Franco-Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri had run into trouble with Lebanese justice for scenes from his film "The Attack" shot in Israel with Israeli actors. He had finally been dismissed, the courts having considered that the alleged acts were time-barred.
Interrogated Wednesday during his press conference on this issue by a journalist for the daily al-Akhbar, close to Hezbollah, Carlos Ghosn "apologized" to the Lebanese for this visit, and those among them who were "saddened" by its displacement.
"I went there as general manager of Renault," he said. "I went there as a Frenchman, because of a contract between Renault and an Israeli company, I was obliged to go there by the management committee, I signed a contract and I returned" .
And to add: "I have never hidden it from the Lebanese authorities, and I have made several stays in Lebanon since then, without anything happening, I do not know why, today, funny Coincidentally, this question resurfaces, who has an interest in talking about this again? "
With AFP
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