A U.S. appeals court on Thursday refused to suspend the extradition of two men wanted by Japan on charges that they helped smuggle former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn out of the country in a box in 2019.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States, based in Boston, rejected an emergency petition to prevent the extradition of Michael and Peter Taylor to give them time to challenge a lower court decision.
The United States government said it could deliver the men to Japan as early as Friday, according to Taylor lawyers.
In a brief decision, the 1st Circuit said the Taylors were unable to show that they would likely succeed based on the merits of their case.
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday refused to suspend the extradition of Michael (photo) and his son Peter Taylor, who are wanted by Japan on charges that they helped smuggle former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn out of the country. in a box in 2019
Taylor, a former Massachusetts Green Beret, and his son are being sought by Japan so they can be tried for allegations that they helped Ghosn’s bold escape (photo) from the country while he was released on bail and awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct
An email asking for comments was sent to a Taylors lawyer. Taylors’ lawyers say men cannot be extradited because ‘bail’ is not a crime in Japan and therefore helping someone escape bail conditions is also not a crime.
His lawyers believe that men will be subjected to ‘physical and mental torture’ in Japan, describing their criminal justice system as ‘similar to that of an authoritarian regime’.
Michael Taylor, a former Massachusetts Green Beret and private security expert, and his son are being sought by Japan so they can be tried for allegations that they helped Ghosn’s bold escape from the country while he was on bail and awaiting trial for financial misconduct charges.
Taylor’s father reportedly received $ 1.3 million to help hide Ghosn in a box and transport him from Japan.
Michael Taylor said in an interview with the Associated Press this month that he fears that they will be treated unfairly in the Japanese legal system and feels betrayed because the United States would try to hand him over to Japan after his service to the country.
“You dedicate your time in the army and serve in combat and do a lot of other things,” said Michael Taylor.
‘And now they offer to extradite me and my son to Japan for something like that? Yes, you feel a great sense of betrayal. ‘
The Taylors’ defense team had pressed the Trump White House to intervene.
The father and son hired two powerful lawyers with connections to former President Donald Trump – Abbe Lowell, who represented Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Ty Cobb, a former Trump lawyer in the White House – in the hope that whatever the case would get Trump’s attention before he stepped down.
Taylor expected President Joe Biden’s government to review the case, but the White House made no comment.
‘My father is in his 80s now. We will get there and be tortured. I won’t be here in my father’s last days, which I obviously would like to be. Your grandson would also like to be, ‘said Michael Taylor. – Don’t you think we’ve been punished enough?
In court documents this week, the United States Department of Justice classified the Taylor’s offer claims to block extradition from ‘unprecedented and without merit’ and noted that they had already been rejected by other judges.
A video image from the security camera shows Taylor, in the center, and George-Antoine Zayek at passport control at Istanbul Airport, Turkey
These are the metal instrument cases that were allegedly used during Ghosn’s flight from Japan to Lebanon through Turkey
This chart shows details of how the leak occurred in 2019
A DOJ spokesman said that anyone extradited to Japan to stand trial for alleged crimes committed there ‘will have all due process and other rights normally available to all defendants facing criminal charges in Japan’.
The US State Department agreed in October to hand the two over to Japan, but a Boston federal court judge suspended extradition after their lawyers filed an emergency petition.
The judge rejected the petition last week, paving the way for extradition, before lawyers appealed to the 1st Court.
Taylor refused to discuss the details of the case due to the possibility of being tried in Japan. But he insisted that his son “was not involved” and was not in Japan when Ghosn left.
Prosecutors described it as one of the “most blatant and well-orchestrated escape acts in recent history”.
Ghosn transferred more than $ 860,000 to a company linked to Peter Taylor shortly before the escape and Ghosn’s son subsequently made $ 500,000 in cryptocurrency payments, officials said.
On the day of the escape, Michael Taylor flew to Osaka in a chartered jet with another man, George-Antoine Zayek, carrying two large black boxes and pretending to be musicians with audio equipment, officials said.
Ghosn’s escape occurred while he was awaiting trial on allegations that he did not report his future income and committed a breach of confidence by diverting money from Nissan Motor for his personal gain.
Taylor (right) declined to discuss the details of the case due to the possibility of being tried in Japan. But he insisted that his son (left) “was not involved” and was not in Japan when Ghosn left
Taylor (right) and his son (left, when he was much younger) were arrested in May for their alleged involvement in the Ghosn escape in December 2019 and are being held in a Massachusetts prison.
He went to the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo and met with Peter Taylor, who was already in Japan, officials say.
Elder Taylor and Zayek met the other two at the Grand Hyatt and soon after, they separated.
Peter Taylor took a flight to China while the others boarded a bullet train and returned to another hotel near the airport, where Taylor and Zayek had booked a room. They all came in; only Ghosn’s rescuers were seen leaving.
Authorities say Ghosn was inside one of the big black boxes. At the airport, the boxes passed an unchecked security checkpoint and were loaded onto a private jet bound for Turkey, officials said.
Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades, saving it from near bankruptcy, denies any wrongdoing.
He said he fled because he could not wait for a fair trial, was subjected to unfair terms of detention and was prevented from meeting his wife on bail.
He is now in Lebanon, where he has citizenship, but has no extradition treaty with Japan.
Over the years, Taylor was hired by his parents to rescue kidnapped children, served in disguise for the FBI in a frame against a Massachusetts drug gang and worked as a contractor for the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this is not the first time that he has found himself in legal trouble.
In 2012, federal prosecutors claimed that Taylor won a US military contract to train Afghan soldiers using secret information passed on by an American officer.
When Taylor learned that the contract was being investigated, he asked an FBI agent and friend to intervene, prosecutors accused. Taylor spent 14 months in prison before agreeing to plead guilty to two charges.