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

Nissan’s former chief Carlos Ghosn looked set to 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 request from Ghosn’s defence team after his lawyers filed the request following his indictment for aggravated breach of trust, accused of enriching himself at a cost of $5m to Nissan from July 2017 through July 2018.

Prosecutors are expected to appeal. It will mark the second time he has been released on bail.

Ghosn was initially released last month, but then re-arrested on April 4 on the new charges, returning to the same Tokyo detention centre where he had previously spent 108 dates 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.

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”.

Ghosn will be free to leave the detention centre after posting bail, but his movements and communications will likely be strictly monitored and restricted in line with his previous bail conditions.

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