While voices keep rising, notably those of Christian Estrosi, a leading French right-wing executive, and François Zimeray, a lawyer who condemns the lack of presumption of innocence, Carlos Ghosn breaks silence on January 30, 2019.
He met with three journalists at his Kosuge prison. The Nikkei first, and then AFP and Les Echos together.
Timed for 15 minutes, the conversations were all documented and recorded by the prison warden. This allowed Carlos Ghosn to speak publicly for the first time in more than 70 days and say everything he had to say.
Through his testimony, the former chairman gave the details of his experience in prison and illustrated the hostage justice system that had been condemned by a number of people over the past weeks.
He explains, among other things, that he is forced to sleep with the light on, that he has no watch and can only go out on the roof for 30 minutes a day. He’s not allowed to communicate with his family either.
A psychological torture and arbitrary treatment that Carlos Ghosn also experiences during interrogations by the prosecutor’s office:
“I find myself […] facing an army of people who keep throwing atrocities at me. It’s not just the prosecutor’s allegations, but also those from Nissan. They take a lot of facts out of perspective. It is a distortion of reality to destroy my reputation. At Nissan, the people behind the accusations are also the ones conducting the investigation. This is quite surprising. As for me, I’m being denied any opportunity to defend myself properly. I am only talking about fairness.”
Essentially, Carlos Ghosn refutes the accusations against him and claims his innocence. The former chairman strongly asserts that he is a victim of ‘plot and treason’.
Carlos Ghosn specifies that every yen he received has been declared and that prosecutors are now pressing charges on uncollected money.
Moreover, Carlos Ghosn reiterates that the financial embezzlements for which he is being accused by Nissan were transactions known to all, since they involved a certain number of signatories.
Throughout the interviews, he explains how he wanted to create a holding company that would control Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi and own all the shares of the Group. In return, each company would have been judged on its own performance.
However, the decline in Nissan’s performance over the past two years and the reinforcement of conservative forces must have scared off the Japanese.
In these interviews, Carlos Ghosn strongly attacks Hiroto Saikawa, whom he apparently planned to fire.
These are revelations that allow Carlos Ghosn to defend himself. In the meantime, the good results of the Alliance have gone almost unnoticed, but the Alliance is, for the second year in a row, the world’s number one (in volumes). This is mainly due to the strategy adopted by Carlos Ghosn.