Paris (AFP)

Carlos Ghosn's wife said she was initially unaware of her husband's escape, "the only possible choice", in an interview Tuesday with Le Parisien on the eve of a highly-anticipated press conference by the tycoon fallen from the automobile in Lebanon.

Carole Ghosn was targeted earlier on Tuesday by an arrest warrant from the Tokyo public prosecutor's office for false testimony, and assured the French daily that "it is a revenge for Japanese prosecutors" after her husband's escape from Japan in the night of December 29 to 30.

"They announced it just before the conference, hoping to put pressure on my husband and punish me once again. I find it small from an alleged great democracy. I have already been humiliated in Japan where I have been accused of running away from justice when it is absolutely untrue! "said Ms. Ghosn indignantly.

Carlos Ghosn is scheduled to speak to the press on Wednesday in Beirut, his first public appearance since he evaded Japanese justice under extraordinary circumstances.

Arrested in November 2018 for alleged financial embezzlement and then charged, the former CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi group was under house arrest in Tokyo.

65-year-old Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian is suspected of having fled by taking a private jet in the company of two alleged accomplices and of having avoided controls by being hidden in a box of audio equipment, before arriving in Lebanon of which he holds nationality, via Turkey.

Ms. Ghosn said she knew nothing about the expedition, but felt that her husband had had no other choice.

"I knew nothing (...) I was in Beirut with my children to celebrate Christmas, someone called me to say: I have a surprise for you. It was the most beautiful in my whole life! "said Carole Ghosn to the Parisian.

"Leaving was the only possible choice when he saw his trial postponed indefinitely and he was kept in conditions of deprivation of liberty aimed at dehumanizing him. Carlos did not intend to plead guilty for things he did not don't do it, "she said.

Regarding the conference on Wednesday, Ghosn said that her husband would be able to "explain himself, to find out the truth" and that he was "the victim of an industrial plot and the war between Renault and Nissan".

Asked about the state of mind of her husband, she judged that "he is tense, it is normal. It is the most important speech of all his life!"

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