October 29. According to Japanese media reports, a pair of American father and son were arrested in the United States in May after they were accused of assisting Carlos Ghosn,
the former chairman of Nissan Motor Company, to escape. According to the latest news, the US State Department has approved the extradition of the father and son to Japan.
Kyodo News Agency of Japan reported that the public court and two defense lawyers’ documents disclosed the above news. Japan’s “Asahi Shimbun” learned in an interview with relevant people that the
US State Department decided to extradite the pair of American father and son to Japan before November 3 local time and has notified the Japanese government.
However, the Federal Court of Massachusetts in the Eastern United States ruled on the 29th that while discussing the defense’s urgent complaint regarding the approval of extradition, the transfer to Japan should be suspended.
The defense stated that the date of the U.S. State Department’s decision to approve the extradition was October 27. The defense was notified on the 28th but did not show the time of transfer.
The defense learned that there was a plan to transfer the two in the near future, so it initiated the procedure to request the court to postpone the transfer.
Japanese Minister Yoko Kamikawa said at a press conference on October 30 that the extradition was postponed, “it is related to the investigation of individual cases and is a procedure in the United States, so it is inconvenient to answer.”
According to reports, Ghosn is 66 years old, born in Brazil, of Lebanese origin, and has Brazilian, French and Lebanese nationalities. He joined Renault in 1996, took over Nissan in 1999, and became chairman of Mitsubishi Motors in 2017. He became executives of three auto companies and took charge of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance.
Ghosn was accused of multiple accusations from Japan, including embezzlement of public funds, underreporting of income, transfer of personal investment losses to companies and serious breach of trust.
The Ghosn case was originally scheduled to start in April 2020, but he escaped from Japan in December 2019. After arriving in Lebanon, he bombarded the Japanese judiciary for “unfair”.
Japan seeks to extradite Ghosn from Lebanon, but the two countries have no extradition treaty. There is an extradition agreement between the United States and Japan.
The American father and son who helped Ghosn escape were Michael Taylor and his son Peter Taylor, a former member of the US Special Forces “Green Berets”, aged 59 and 27.
The Japanese accused the father and son of assisting Ghosn in fleeing from Japan to Lebanon during bail at the end of 2019, and issued arrest warrants for the two. The US subsequently arrested Taylor and his son in Massachusetts on May 20, 2020.
According to the Japanese prosecutor, Taylor and his son were suspected of participating in “one of the most scrupulously planned escapes in recent years.”
Japanese prosecutors disclosed in July that Japan formally submitted a request for the extradition of Taylor and his son to the United States.
A federal court in Massachusetts ruled on September 4 that the American father and son could be extradited to Japan for trial.
