French justice issued this Friday, April 22, an international arrest warrant against Carlos Ghosn, the former boss of the Renault Nissan alliance, as part of an investigation by the Nanterre prosecutor’s office (Hauts-de-Seine) .
The former French boss, who was to be tried in Tokyo for financial embezzlement, now lives in Beirut, Lebanon since his incredible flight from Japan at the end of 2019.
On the side of French justice, the investigators are interested in nearly 15 million euros of payments considered suspicious between the Renault-Nissan alliance (RNBV) and the distributor of the French car manufacturer in Oman, Suhail Bahwan Automobiles (SBA ).
Five arrest warrants
The Nanterre investigating judge in charge of the investigation issued five international arrest warrants in total. The latter target, in addition to Carlos Ghosn, “the current owners or former managers of the Omani company SBA”, specified the prosecution.
According to one of Carlos Ghosn’s lawyers, Jean Tamalet, of the King and Spalding firm, “this mandate is very surprising because the investigating judge and the Nanterre prosecutor know perfectly well that Carlos Ghosn, who has always cooperated with justice, subject to a judicial ban on leaving Lebanese territory”.
During their investigations, the magistrates of Nanterre had already traveled twice to Beirut. Last February, they interviewed two witnesses there. In the previous June, they had also proceeded, with magistrates from Paris, to the free hearing of Carlos Ghosn for five days, for the investigations targeting him in Nanterre and Paris.