ISTANBUL – A Turkish court has convicted an executive of the Turkish jet company MNG and two pilots for smuggling migrants in their role on the flight of former Nissan Motor Co Ltd president Carlos Ghosn out of Japan during his escape to Lebanon just over one year.
The court sentenced them to four years and two months in prison, although their lawyer said they should not serve a prison sentence because they had been in detention for several months.
Two other pilots and a flight attendant were acquitted, while charges against another flight attendant were dropped.
Ghosn, who was once a leader in the global automotive industry, was arrested in Japan in late 2018 and accused of not declaring his salary and using company funds for personal purposes, charges he denies.
The ousted president of Renault, Nissan Motor Co and Mitsubishi Motors Corp awaited trial under house arrest in Japan when he fled in December 2019 via Istanbul to Beirut, his childhood home.
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Ghosn, who has French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship, remains at large and remains in Beirut, where he announced several months ago that he was launching a university business program. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan.
An executive at the Turkish private jet operator MNG Jet and four pilots were detained by Turkish authorities in early January 2020 and accused of smuggling migrants.
The lawyer for one of the convicted pilots, Erem Yucel, told reporters that they would appeal the verdict.
Convicted pilot Noyan Pasin said the team and officials did not suspect that there was anything wrong with the flight, whether in Japan or Turkey, so it was wrong to single out the pilots.
“We were expected to suspect and we were convicted because we did not,” he told reporters.
The defendants were released in July, when the first hearing was held, and are not expected to return to prison due to the time they served. It is not known that Japan requested extradition to face the charges there.
The Ghosn saga has rocked the global auto industry, at one point putting the Renault-Nissan alliance he envisioned at risk, and has increased scrutiny in the Japanese judicial system.
Renault and Nissan have struggled to regain profitability after their management, during which the two automakers say Ghosn has been too focused on expanding sales and market share.