FALLEN Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn’s new lawyer — nicknamed the “Razor” — today raised the prospect that the car industry titan could be freed in the near future.
Ghosn, who has been held in a Tokyo jail since the end of November, faces charges of financial misconduct including under-reporting his Nissan pay for nearly a decade and transferring some personal losses onto Nissan’s books.
But Junichiro Hironaka, who has earned his moniker in Japan for his successful defence of several high-profile cases, said he had a new legal strategy for the case. A fresh bail application includes “further measures” such as more surveillance that could help free the executive from his lengthy pre-trial detention. “I believe it’s possible he could be released in the near future,” he said.
Hironaka has also argued the allegations should have been handled as an internal company matter and blasted the judicial system for keeping his client in jail.
In his only public appearance since the arrest, in January Ghosn declared his innocence and that he has been wrongly detained. In an interview, he also accused some of his Nissan colleagues of resorting to “plot and treason” to bring the financial misconduct allegations against him out of concern about closer ties with French partner Renault.
