Former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn escaped from home arrest in Japan and ran in Lebanon, where he reportedly met with the country’s president Michel Aoun.
Sources familiar with the matter told the media that the fugitive executive was smuggled out of his house by a private security firm. He fled in Beirut via Istanbul, Turkey.
Reuters cited
the two sources as saying that the plan to get Ghosn out of Japan had been
prepared for over three months. One of them stated:
“It was a very
professional operation from start to finish.”
The meeting between President Michel Aoun and Ghosn has not
been made public, and the president's office denied the two had met.
About a year ago, Ghosn, who was chairman and CEO of an auto alliance between Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi, was sacked by Nissan and arrested in Japan for allegations of misconduct. The executive is charged with understating his salary and misusing the company’s funds.
Ghosn is a French businessman born in Brazil and who is of
Lebanese ancestry. He couldn’t be reached to comment on the meeting with Lebanon’s
President, though he wrote a statement just after arriving in the country,
saying that he had escaped political persecution and injustice.