BEIRUT: Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has filed a lawsuit in Lebanon against the Japanese automaker Nissan, demanding more than $1 billion in compensation following his dismissal.
Businessman Ghosn is being pursued by Japan and France on corruption charges. He fled to Lebanon after departing Japan at the end of 2019, and lodged a complaint with the Lebanese judiciary two weeks ago against Nissan and 12 of its employees, according to a judicial source.
Ghosn has accused them of “conspiring to illegally oust him from the company by fabricating criminal charges, falsifying evidence, and defaming, insulting, and libeling him,” and has demanded “a financial compensation exceeding $1 billion,” the source told Arab News.
“Ghosn’s lawsuit includes the addresses of the defendants. Therefore, the Lebanese judiciary will notify them through diplomatic channels or by mail. A session has been scheduled for the defendants on Sept. 18 at the Palace of Justice in Beirut,” the source added, stressing that the notification process “has not been completed yet.”
The Lebanese judiciary may seek legal assistance from Japan, said the source.
Ghosn, 69, was dismissed by Nissan in 2018. He had been a pioneer during a career of managing global automotive companies but was charged by Japanese authorities with tax evasion, breach of trust, and embezzlement of company funds, and was subsequently arrested.
Ghosn denied the charges and escaped from house arrest by hiding in a box on a private jet in September 2019, traveling to Turkiye and then to Lebanon.
Ghosn had held the position of chairman and CEO of Nissan, as well as chairman of French automaker Renault, and Russian company AvtoVAZ. He also served as chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance.
Lebanon refuses to extradite its citizens to any other country for trial, insisting on trying them on Lebanese soil.
This is the third Interpol Red Notice that Lebanon has received since Ghosn fled Japan in late 2019.
Judge Mirna Kallas interrogated Ghosn on Monday following a French arrest warrant for crimes attributed to him by the French judiciary related to “suspicious payments of up to 15 million euros and his misuse of the company’s assets, money laundering and corruption.”
The new memorandum charged Ghosn with possible links to former French Justice Minister Rachida Dati, who has been accused of having done consulting work for Ghosn for two years from 2010.
Ghosn has denied all the charges against him, according to the judicial source, and added that he “did not provide any financial amount to Dati and that all these charges are untrue.”
Ghosn has been released on bail and his three passports (French, Japanese, and Lebanese) have been confiscated by the Lebanese judiciary. He is prohibited from leaving the country.
A French judicial delegation visited Lebanon in April 2022 to seek assistance from the Lebanese judiciary, and interrogated Ghosn. Since then, neither Japan nor France has sent Ghosn’s files to the Lebanese authorities, which have requested them to try him there.
Carlos Ghosn sues Nissan for $1bn in Lebanon
https://arab.news/93gdd
Carlos Ghosn sues Nissan for $1bn in Lebanon
- Businessman Ghosn is being pursued by Japan and France on corruption charges
- Ghosn has accused them of “conspiring to illegally oust him from the company by fabricating criminal charges, falsifying evidence, and defaming, insulting, and libeling him”
UNRWA says food distribution in Rafah suspended due to insecurity
DUBAI: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that food distribution in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah were currently suspended due to lack of supplies and insecurity.
Simultaneous Israeli assaults on the southern and northern edges of the Gaza Strip this month have caused a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, and sharply restricted the flow of aid, raising the risk of famine.
Cyprus says maritime aid shipments to Gaza ‘on track’
- 1,000 tons of aid were shipped from Cyprus to the besieged Palestinian territory between Friday and Sunday
- The vessels were shuttling between Gaza and the east Mediterranean island
NICOSIA: Four ships from the United States and France are transporting aid from Larnaca port to the Gaza Strip amid the spiralling humanitarian crisis there, the Cyprus presidency said on Tuesday.
Victor Papadopoulos from the presidential press office told state radio 1,000 tons of aid were shipped from Cyprus to the besieged Palestinian territory between Friday and Sunday.
He said the vessels were shuttling between Gaza and the east Mediterranean island, a distance of about 360 kilometers (225 miles).
Large quantities of aid from Britain, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and other countries have accumulated at Larnaca port.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters on Tuesday the maritime aid effort was “on track.”
“We have substantial assistance from third countries that want to contribute to this effort,” he said.
The aid shipped from Cyprus is entering Gaza via a temporary US-built floating pier, where the shipments are offloaded for distribution.
The United Nations has warned of famine as Gaza’s 2.4 million people face shortages of food, safe water, medicines and fuel amid the Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the coastal territory.
Aid deliveries by truck have slowed to a trickle since Israeli forces took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt in early May.
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Two days after the war broke out, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 35,647 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Daesh attack in Syria kills three soldiers: war monitor
- The militants “attacked a site where... regime forces were stationed“
- The Syrian army had sent forces to the area, where Daesh attacks are common
BEIRUT: Daesh group militants killed three Syrian soldiers in an attack Tuesday on an army position in the Badia desert, a war monitor said.
The militants “attacked a site where... regime forces were stationed,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that a lieutenant colonel and two soldiers died.
The Syrian army had sent forces to the area, where Daesh attacks are common, ahead of an expected wider sweep, said the Britain-based Observatory which has a network of sources inside the country.
In an attack on May 3, Daesh fighters killed at least 15 Syrian pro-government fighters when they targeted three military positions in the desert, the Observatory had reported.
Daesh overran large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a so-called caliphate and launching a reign of terror.
It was defeated territorially in Syria in 2019, but its remnants still carry out deadly attacks, particularly against pro-government forces and Kurdish-led fighters in Badia desert.
Syria’s war has claimed more than half a million lives and displaced millions more since it erupted in March 2011 with Damascus’s brutal repression of anti-government protests.
At least 9 Egyptian women and children die when vehicle slides off ferry and plunges into Nile River
At least 9 Egyptian women and children die when vehicle slides off ferry and plunges into Nile River
- The accident, which happened in Monshat el-Kanater town in Giza province, also injured nine other passengers
CAIRO: At least nine Egyptian women and children died Tuesday when a small bus carrying about two dozen people slid off a ferry and plunged into the Nile River just outside Cairo, health authorities said.
The accident, which happened in Monshat el-Kanater town in Giza province, injured nine other passengers, the Health Ministry said in a statement. Giza is one of three provinces forming Greater Cairo.
Six of the injured were treated at the site while three others were transferred to hospitals. The ministry didn’t elaborate on their injuries.
A list of the nine dead obtained by The Associated Press showed four were minors.
Giza provincial Gov. Ahmed Rashed said the bus was retrieved from the river and rescue efforts were still underway as of midday Tuesday.
The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.
According to the state-owned Akhbar daily, about two dozen passengers, mostly women, were in the vehicle heading to work when the accident occurred. It said security forces detained the vehicle driver.
Ferry, railway and road accidents are common in Egypt, mainly because of poor maintenance and lack of regulations. In February, a ferry carrying day laborers sank in the Nile in Giza, killing at least 10 of the 15 people on board.
Syrian first lady Asma Assad has leukemia, presidency says
- Statement stated that Asma would undergo a special treatment protocol that would require her to isolate
DUBAI: Syria’s first lady, Asma Assad, has been diagnosed with leukemia, the Syrian presidency said on Tuesday, almost five years after she announced she had fully recovered from breast cancer.
The statement said Asma, 48, would undergo a special treatment protocol that would require her to isolate, and that she would step away from public engagements as a result.
In August 2019, Asma said she had fully recovered from breast cancer that she said had been discovered early.
Since Syria plunged into war in 2011, the British-born former investment banker has taken on the public role of leading charity efforts and meeting families of killed soldiers, but has also become hated by the opposition.
She runs the Syria Trust for Development, a large NGO that acts as an umbrella organization for many of the aid and development operations in Syria.
Last year, she accompanied her husband, President Bashar Assad ,on a visit to the United Arab Emirates, her first known official trip abroad with him since 2011. She met Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, the Emirati president’s mother, during a trip seen as a public signal of her growing role in public affairs.
