TOKYO — Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn by no means took the stand or had a lawyer within the room within the Tokyo legal trial of his former lieutenant, human sources chief Greg Kelly.

In actual fact, Ghosn was 5,000 miles away from Japan, and final week’s verdict technically wasn’t even about him.

However Ghosn was nonetheless the focus of the trial, the place a Tokyo choose final week convicted Kelly of serving to Ghosn skirt the regulation by hiding deferred compensation.

Chief choose Kenji Shimotsu stated it plainly in his ruling: “This case is about Ghosn.”

In handing Kelly a six-month suspended sentence and fining Nissan 200 million yen ($1.73 million), the choose appeared largely intent on issuing a proxy judgment on Ghosn in absentia.

“This case was motivated by Ghosn’s private greed,” Shimotsu declared, blasting the indicted former high-flying chairman as “egocentric and conceited” and his tenure on the helm of Nissan a “dictatorship.”

Ghosn, who led Nissan Motor Co. as chairman and in addition created and ran the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, jumped bail in Japan and fled to Lebanon to evade what he known as an unfair justice system. After the Kelly verdict, he wasted little time in firing again.

In a video name with Automotive Information, Ghosn stated the choose’s feedback solely highlighted the baked-in bias of the Japanese authorized system.

“I am imagined to be in entrance of a choose, not one other prosecutor,” Ghosn stated. “It is a face-saving verdict,” he stated of Kelly’s conviction, “however nonetheless predictable and apparent if you end up within the hostage justice system in Japan. The one uncertainty is what sort of excuse one can find to make him seem responsible.

“In Japan, when the prosecutor places his eyes on you, you are responsible. After which you need to show your innocence,” Ghosn stated, taking concern with Japan’s vaunted 99 p.c conviction price.

In handing down his long-awaited ruling final week, greater than three years after Ghosn’s arrest in 2018, the choose additionally took intention at Nissan itself. Shimotsu blamed the automaker’s “dysfunctional company governance” for enabling the misconduct to start, saying “that is nothing greater than the results of its personal deeds.”

Defendant Kelly, a former Nissan director, was relegated to a relative footnote in Shimotsu’s concluding feedback.

In actual fact, Kelly’s conviction was for his exercise throughout solely one of many eight fiscal years beneath scrutiny by prosecutors. The courtroom really dominated Kelly not responsible on all counts within the remaining seven years, deciding there was no arduous proof linking him to alleged misconduct. However, Shimotsu maintained, that is to not say there weren’t crimes these different years.

The choose repeatedly blasted Ghosn for conspiring to hide deferred compensation with one other Nissan official, the final supervisor of the Secretariat workplace that handles the automaker’s govt pay. Prosecutors claimed that over the eight years in query, Ghosn instructed that official, Toshiaki Ohnuma, to put aside about half of the chairman’s remuneration and never disclose it in Nissan’s monetary filings.

The plan, prosecutors claimed, was to sidestep reporting guidelines and quietly comp Ghosn the shortfall at a later date — an alleged sum totaling about ¥9 billion ($78 million) over eight years.

Ohnuma was informed to maintain it a “tightly guarded secret” as a result of Ghosn feared that if the true scale of his beneficiant pay have been revealed publicly, he would face a backlash in France, the place he additionally chaired Renault.

In outlining this scheme, Shimotsu didn’t hesitate to declare Ghosn’s culpability. “There exists unpaid remuneration for Ghosn that ought to have been disclosed,” he stated.

“This crime is among the most malicious of its form,” he continued. “The case not solely shocked the enterprise neighborhood however society at massive.” And due to the false info disclosed in Nissan’s securities stories, he stated, “there was a excessive threat of traders making improper enterprise selections.”

Kelly, 65, was the one defendant hauled earlier than a choose within the prolonged trial, which started in September 2020. Kelly was arrested on the identical day as Ghosn and has been prohibited from leaving Japan ever since by the phrases of his $610,000 bail.

Against this, Ghosn, who turns 68 this week, surprised the world in December 2019 when he escaped to his ancestral homeland of Lebanon, the place he’s nonetheless dwelling however grounded from worldwide journey by an Interpol pink discover.

Ghosn’s made-for-Hollywood escape entailed racing cross-country on Japan’s bullet practice, being packed into an outsized musical gear trunk after which spirited onto a personal jet by a staff of operatives led by a former U.S. Military Inexperienced Beret.

Kelly was cleared on most counts as a result of the choose discovered that Ohnuma, the important thing witness linking Kelly to the alleged postponed compensation, was not dependable. This was partly as a result of Ohnuma, who saved data on Ghosn’s pay, had taken a plea discount with prosecutors to win immunity.

“There may be appreciable room for him to make statements that conform to the prosecutors’ needs,” Shimotsu stated of Ohnuma, calling his testimony “not credible.”

Ghosn final week stated he finds it ironic that the choose appeared to consider Ohnuma on Ghosn’s conduct: “How can he say I concocted all this with Ohnuma, though he raised suspicion about Ohnuma saying he’s aligned an excessive amount of with the prosecutor?”

“How will you say from one aspect that he plotted with me, and from the opposite aspect that he aligned with the prosecutor?” Ghosn requested.

Kelly managed to duck a worst-case situation by being tagged with just one depend and given a six-month jail sentence suspended for 3 years. Which means he can keep out of jail, pending good conduct over the three-year interval. However beneath the suspended sentence, Kelly ought to have the ability to return to the U.S. and be reunited with household, his legal professionals stated.

The U.S. Embassy in Japan even issued a press launch welcoming the decision, a uncommon transfer in a person case.

However afterward, Kelly stated he was nonetheless “very stunned and shocked” by the judgment. His legal professionals stated Kelly was “utterly harmless” and would attraction the choice for full vindication.

“I had persistently labored with one of the best pursuits of Nissan in thoughts, and in no case was I concerned in any unlawful act,” Kelly stated in an announcement. “I’m harmless on all counts.”

Ghosn stated the superb in opposition to Nissan was a slap on the wrist for the corporate, in contrast with the legal penalties wielded in opposition to himself and Kelly. Nonetheless, he was relieved for Kelly and his household.

“I pray he’ll have the ability to overcome this big emotional, psychological, monetary impression inflicted on him by the hostage justice system of Japan,” he stated. “He is clearly an harmless man.”

Naoto Okamura contributed to this report.