its arrests and pre-trial detainment. It is not a system you would be happy living under. Also, Ghosn is accused of "underreporting his salary" to the people who actually wrote his paycheck and negotiated his compensation. Recently they added a charge of "breach of faith". In essence he is charged with crimes that wouldn't pass the laugh test in a U.S. criminal court.
The issue, as I see it, has far less to do with actual misconduct, and a lot more to do with the fact that Ghosn, a non-Japanese CEO of a major Japanese company, was forging a business merger with a non-Japanese company (Renault).
To quote a story in the Japan Times:
Japanese prosecutors subject suspects to up to eight hours of daily questioning while they are detained in a bid to obtain a confession, shutting off access to their family and barring them from obtaining legal assistance during the questioning. And according to the popular narrative, it’s all done capriciously, with the nefarious machinations of the state lurking behind.
Some even argue that the pretrial detention process is especially harsh for foreign nationals. The day prosecutors whisked Ghosn back into jail and arrested him for the fourth time, Fox Business Network anchor Dagen McDowell declared: “Carlos Ghosn and his family are targeted because they’re gaijin — they’re non-Japanese.”
The reporter then backtracks a bit in the story, and offers, what I consider to be, weak evidence in "chart form" that the treatment was fair, then goes on to admit that the justice system has major faults and "The system must change"
At its core, Japan’s pretrial detention system has two major flaws: The excessive duration of detention and the absence of an attorney during questioning.
Both Karpeles and Ghosn were held in detention for the full maximum of 20 days before being charged. Their detentions were then extended with periodic court reviews of bail requests from the accused, which, upon rejection, led to further detention.
During detention, both were subject to extensive questioning by prosecutors without an attorney present. Videotapes of Ghosn’s questioning — a new feature added in the Criminal Procedure Reform law in 2016 in direct response to documented abuses — were made available to his attorneys who were present at the detention center, but lawyers were not permitted in the room where questioning took place.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/17/national/crime-legal/examining-carlos-ghosn-japans-system-hostage-justice/
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