BEIRUT: French judicial investigators heard fugitive ex-auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn as a witness Wednesday in Beirut ahead of further questioning next week, two sources said.
“Six French judges, including public prosecutors and investigative judges, started listening to Ghosn’s witness testimony at 11:00 a.m. (0800 GMT),” a Lebanese judicial source told AFP.
A French source close to the case said the ex-Renault chief is being questioned as a “simple witness” over accusations that Renault cheated on pollution tests for diesel and petrol engines with the knowledge of top management.
The investigation opened in France in 2015 as part of the “dieselgate” scandal also involving Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler and French peer PSA.
The hearing comes before French magistrates on Monday officially question Ghosn, who holds Lebanese, French and Brazilian citizenship, over other judicial inquiries lodged against him in France.
French prosecutors are looking into whether he wrongly obtained use of the Palace of Versailles for his lavish 2016 wedding.
Ghosn is also being investigated by France’s tax fraud office over suspicious financial transactions between Renault and its distributor in the Gulf state of Oman, as well as over contracts signed by Renault-Nissan’s Dutch subsidiary RNBV.
Ghosn was supposed to meet French judicial investigators in Beirut in January but the meetings were postponed because of travel restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The former tycoon was arrested in Japan in November 2018 on financial misconduct allegations and spent 130 days in detention before jumping bail and smuggling himself out of the country in late 2019.
Wanted by Interpol, Ghosn is effectively trapped in Lebanon, even as others face court over their links to his case.
Japan has urged him to return and face trial, while Lebanon has asked Japan to hand over his file on financial misconduct charges.
Ghosn is currently beyond the reach of the Japanese courts and leads a comparatively quiet life, mostly in his Beirut home.
He recently released a book setting out his side of his case.
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Ghosn gives witness testimony to French investigators
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Ghosn gives witness testimony to French investigators
- Ex-Renault chief is being questioned as a "simple witness" over accusations that Renault cheated on pollution tests
- Ghosn is also being investigated by France's tax fraud office over suspicious financial transactions
UN warns clock ticking for Sudan’s children
- UNICEF says in parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished
- UN-backed experts have said famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region
GENEVA: The United Nations warned Tuesday that time was running out for malnourished children in Sudan and urged the world to “stop looking away.”
Famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region, UN-backed experts warned last week, with the grinding war between the army and paramilitary forces leaving millions hungry, displaced and cut off from aid.
Global food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in North Darfur’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.
Ricardo Pires, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said the situation was getting worse for children by the day, warning: “They are running out of time.”
In parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished, he told a press conference in Geneva.
“Extreme hunger and malnutrition come to children first: the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable, and in Sudan it’s spreading,” he said.
Fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections, low vaccination coverage, unsafe water and collapsing health systems are turning treatable illnesses “into death sentences for already malnourished children,” he warned.
“Access is shrinking, funding is desperately short and the fighting is intensifying.
“Humanitarian access must be granted and the world must stop looking away from Sudan’s children.”
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and triggered what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan, said the country was “facing multiple disease outbreaks: including cholera, malaria, dengue, measles, in addition to malnutrition.”
At the same time, health workers and health infrastructure are increasingly in the crosshairs, he told reporters.
Since the war began, the WHO has verified 205 attacks on health care, leading to 1,924 deaths.
And the attacks are growing deadlier by the year.
In 2025, 65 attacks caused 1,620 deaths, and in the first 40 days of this year, four attacks led to 66 deaths.
Fighting has intensified in the southern Kordofan region.
“We have to be proactive and to pre-position supplies, to deploy our teams on the ground to be prepared for any situation,” Sahbani said.
“But all this contingency planning... it’s a small drop in the sea.”
Famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region, UN-backed experts warned last week, with the grinding war between the army and paramilitary forces leaving millions hungry, displaced and cut off from aid.
Global food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in North Darfur’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.
Ricardo Pires, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said the situation was getting worse for children by the day, warning: “They are running out of time.”
In parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished, he told a press conference in Geneva.
“Extreme hunger and malnutrition come to children first: the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable, and in Sudan it’s spreading,” he said.
Fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections, low vaccination coverage, unsafe water and collapsing health systems are turning treatable illnesses “into death sentences for already malnourished children,” he warned.
“Access is shrinking, funding is desperately short and the fighting is intensifying.
“Humanitarian access must be granted and the world must stop looking away from Sudan’s children.”
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and triggered what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan, said the country was “facing multiple disease outbreaks: including cholera, malaria, dengue, measles, in addition to malnutrition.”
At the same time, health workers and health infrastructure are increasingly in the crosshairs, he told reporters.
Since the war began, the WHO has verified 205 attacks on health care, leading to 1,924 deaths.
And the attacks are growing deadlier by the year.
In 2025, 65 attacks caused 1,620 deaths, and in the first 40 days of this year, four attacks led to 66 deaths.
Fighting has intensified in the southern Kordofan region.
“We have to be proactive and to pre-position supplies, to deploy our teams on the ground to be prepared for any situation,” Sahbani said.
“But all this contingency planning... it’s a small drop in the sea.”
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