Since: 1) He had essentially zero chance of being acquitted, and 2) He was the victim of Nissan executives who didn't like having a gaijin be their boss: In his shoes, I would feel morally justified in escaping. Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. If you disagree with that, suppose Britney Griner somehow escaped from Russian "justice"? How would you feel then? Edit. Everyone talking about hypothetical burgl…
"Japan
The conviction rate is 99.3%. By only stating this high conviction rate it is often misunderstood as too high—however, this high conviction rate drops significantly when accounting for the fact that Japanese prosecutors drop roughly half the cases they are given. If measured in the same way, the United States' conviction rate would be 99.8%."
And he has since had to settle a massive fraud charge from the US SEC and is the subject of an arrest warrant from France now too. Bit hard to just dismiss the whole thing as being due to racist authoritarian Japan.
2) What was he a victim of? There are allegations and counter allegations, why should he have the presumption of innocence but not these "Nissan executives"?
> In his shoes, I would feel morally justified in escaping.
I'm guessing most CEO types would feel moral in personally deciding the punishment for their crimes is unfair and therefore they are justified in committing more crimes to get away with their earlier crimes...
> If you disagree with that, suppose Britney Griner somehow escaped from Russian "justice"? How would you feel then?
An emotionally charged question because of the situation now, but there are many who get "unfair" sentences for drugs all over the world including people jailed in Russia for similar crimes, people executed in South East Asia and the Middle East for drugs, and people locked away in the US for years on non violent crimes based on legislation and prosecutions orchestrated by the likes of President Biden and Vice President Harris.
Not that you can't be against all of those things, but it's a pretty huge crutch that seems to be trying to equate Japan's justice system with Russia's, and harsh penalties for personal drug use with the often very lenient punishments for fraud and embezzlement. "If you aren't with Ghosn then you're with Putin" is a bridge too far.
> Edit. Everyone talking about hypothetical burglaries and $10 thefts from poor people: please explain what, exactly, Ghosn was accused of stealing, and from whom?
Some millions of dollars. From company shareholders.