JAPAN: GREG KELLY, EX-COLLABORATOR OF GHOSN, SENTENCED TO SIX MONTHS IN PRISON, SUSPENDED
TOKYO (Reuters) – A Tokyo court on Thursday sentenced former Nissan Motor director Greg Kelly to a six-month suspended prison sentence for helping Carlos Ghosn, the Japanese automaker’s former chairman, hide part of his income.
The Japanese prosecutor’s office had requested last September a two-year prison sentence against this 65-year-old former lawyer of American nationality.
Accused of having helped Carlos Ghosn to hide nearly nine billion yen (about 70 million euros) in income, Greg Kelly has always denied any wrongdoing.
“I was shocked by this judgment,” he said in a statement. “The court found me essentially innocent but I don’t understand why they found me guilty of one of the years.”
His lawyers have announced that they will appeal this decision, which should not prevent Greg Kelly from returning to the United States.
Tokyo court judges ruled there was a concealment of income but blamed part of the blame on a key prosecution witness, Toshiaki Ohnuma, a Nissan executive who oversaw details of the company’s compensation. Carlos Ghosn but was not prosecuted in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors.
“There was a risk that Ohnuma would make statements consistent with prosecutors’ wishes,” the court said. “There was a danger that, as an accomplice, he would seek to shift the blame onto Ghosn,” he added.
The court also ordered Nissan to pay a fine of 200 million yen for failing to disclose Carlos Ghosn’s compensation. The third Japanese manufacturer had pleaded guilty when the trial opened 18 months ago.
“Although these three years have been long for the Kelly family, this chapter has come to an end. He and Dee (his wife) can begin the next chapter of their lives in Tennessee”, welcomed the ambassador of the United States in Tokyo, Rahm Emanuel, in a press release.
Bill Hagerty, U.S. senator from Tennessee, where Greg Kelly is from, said he planned to meet the former Nissan executive at the airport.
Carlos Ghosn, who refutes accusations of financial embezzlement against him, has been a refugee in Lebanon since he fled Japanese justice at the end of 2019.
(Report Tim Kelly and Satoshi Sugiyama; French version Camille Raynaud and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)