ISTANBUL: A private airline official, four pilots and two flights attendants went on trial in Istanbul on Friday, accused of smuggling former Nissan Motor Co. chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan to Lebanon, via Turkey.
Turkish prosecutors are seeking up to eight years in prison each for the four pilots and the airline official on charges of illegally smuggling a migrant, for helping Ghosn escape to Lebanon while he awaited trial in Japan. The two flight attendants face a one-year prison term each if convicted of not reporting a crime.
Ghosn, who was arrested over financial misconduct allegations in Tokyo in 2018, skipped bail while awaiting trial late last year. He was flown to Istanbul and was then transferred onto another plane bound for Beirut, where he arrived Dec. 30. He is believed to have been smuggled inside a large box.
The Turkish airline company MNG Jet said in January that two of its planes were used illegally in Ghosn’s escape, first flying him from Osaka, Japan, to Istanbul, and then on to Beirut. The company said its employee had admitted to falsifying flight records so that Ghosn’s name did not appear on them.
The indictment against the defendants states that Ghosn is believed to have been smuggled inside a “foam-covered music box” large enough to carry a person. It notes a 216,000-euro and $66,000 increase in the airline official’s bank accounts between Oct. 16 and Dec. 26, 2019.
The four pilots and the two flight attendants have denied involvement in the plans to smuggle Ghosn. They also denied knowing that the former Nissan chief was aboard the flights.
The company employee and four pilots are jailed while the flight attendants have been released pending the outcome of the trial.
Separately, a former US Green Beret and his son were also arrested in the United States on charges that they helped smuggle Ghosn out of Japan.
Ghosn, who has Lebanese citizenship, said he fled because he could not expect a fair trial in Japan. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan.
Turkey: pilots, others, on trial for helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn escape
https://arab.news/8a5br
Turkey: pilots, others, on trial for helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn escape
- Carlos Ghosn, who was arrested over financial misconduct allegations in Tokyo in 2018, skipped bail while awaiting trial late last year
Israel gives legal status to 19 West Bank settlements
- Construction of settlements — including some built without official Israeli authorization — has increased under Israel’s far-right governing coalition, fragmenting the West Bank and cutting off Palestinian towns and cities from each other
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Cabinet has decided to give legal status to 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, including two that were vacated 20 years ago under a pullout aimed at boosting the country’s security and the economy, Israeli media reported.
The Palestinian Authority on Friday condemned the move, announced late on Thursday.
Some of the settlements are newly established, while others are older, Israeli media said.
The move to legalize the settlements in the West Bank — territory Palestinians seek for a future state — was proposed by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Most world powers deem Israel’s settlements, on land it captured in a 1967 war, illegal. Numerous UN Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.
Construction of settlements — including some built without official Israeli authorization — has increased under Israel’s far-right governing coalition, fragmenting the West Bank and cutting off Palestinian towns and cities from each other.
The 19 settlements include two that Israel withdrew from in 2005, evacuated under a disengagement plan overseen by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that focused mainly on Gaza.
Under the plan, which was opposed by the settler movement at the time, all 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza were ordered to be evacuated. Most settlements in the West Bank were unaffected.
In a statement on Friday, Palestinian Authority Minister Mu’ayyad Sha’ban called the announcement another step to erase Palestinian geography.
Sha’ban, of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said the decision raised serious alarms over the future of the West Bank.
Home to 2.7 million Palestinians, the Israeli-occupied West Bank has long been at the heart of plans for a future Palestinian nation existing alongside Israel.
Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians reached their highest recorded levels in October with settlers carrying out at least 264 attacks, according to the UN.
