US father and son extradited over Ghosn escape
An American father and son have been handed over to Japanese authorities for allegedly helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn flee the country.
The two were charged last year with helping Mr Ghosn flee Japan, hidden in a box and on a private jet.
Mr Ghosn escaped to his childhood home, Lebanon, which has no extradition treaty with Japan.
Michael Taylor and his son Peter Taylor have fought a months-long battle to avoid extradition over the case.
Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, failed to convince US officials and courts to block extradition to Japan, where they will be tried on charges that they smuggled Ghosn out of the country in 2019 while the former auto titan was awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges.
The Massachusetts men, held at a suburban Boston jail since their arrest in May, were handed over early on Monday, said one of their attorneys, Paul Kelly. Their lawyers had argued the accusations do not fit the law Japan wants to try them under and that they will be treated unfairly and subjected to “mental and physical torture”.
They have accused Japan of pursuing the pair in an attempt to save face after the embarrassment of Ghosn’s escape.
Michael Taylor, a US army special forces veteran in the past hired to rescue abducted children, has never denied the allegations. He gave an interview to Vanity Fair last year in which he described the mission in detail. When asked why he did it, he responded with the motto of the special forces: “De oppresso liber” or “to liberate the oppressed”.
He refused to discuss the details of the case in an interview last month because of the possibility he would be tried in Japan. But he insisted that his son was not involved and was not even in Japan when Ghosn left.
Ghosn, who became one of the auto industry’s most powerful executives by engineering a turnaround at the Japanese manufacturer, had been out on bail after his November 2018 arrest on charges that he underreported his future income and committed a breach of trust by diverting Nissan money for his personal gain.
Ghosn has denied the allegations and has said he fled to avoid “political persecution”.
Source: BBC, The Guardian
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