Tokyo court approves ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn’s $4.5m bail

Nissan’s former chief Carlos Ghosn may soon walk out of a Japanese detention centre for the second time since his arrest last year on financial misconduct charges after a Tokyo court approved his release on 500 million yen ($4.5m) bail.

The Tokyo District Court said in a statement on Thursday that it had approved a bail plea from Ghosn’s defence team after his lawyers filed the request following his indictment for aggravated breach of trust.

He was accused of enriching himself at a cost of $5m to Nissan from July 2017 through July 2018.

But later on Thursday, Tokyo deputy chief prosecutor Shin Kukimoto said the court’s decision was “extremely regrettable” and Japanese prosecutors lodged an appeal against the bail, meaning Ghosn will have to wait further to see if he will be released.

Ghosn was earlier released last month but then was rearrested on April 4 on new charges, returning to the same Tokyo detention centre where he had previously spent 108 days following his first arrest in November.

He has denied all the charges against him.

“This is a conspiracy … this is not about greed or dictatorship, this is about a plot, this about a conspiracy, this is about a backstabbing,” Ghosn said last month in a video message.

The court set conditions for Ghosn’s release, including limitations on where he can live in Japan, a ban on overseas travel and measures to prevent him from running away and tampering with evidence.

Earlier this month, Nissan said it had filed a criminal complaint against its former boss “after determining that payments made by Nissan to an overseas vehicle sales company via a subsidiary were in fact directed by Ghosn for his personal enrichment and were not necessary from a business standpoint”.

Even if Ghosn is freed from the detention centre in the wake of fresh bail, his movements and communications could be strictly monitored and restricted in line with his previous bail conditions.