Lebanon gets Interpol arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn

Ghosn has skipped bail before a trial on financial misconduct charges and fled to Lebanon via Turkey. (File/AFP)
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Updated 02 January 2020
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Lebanon gets Interpol arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn

  • The Interpol wanted notice reached the Lebanese Internal Security Forces and was transferred to Cassation Public Prosecution
  • Separately, lawyers lodge complaint against Ghosn for committing the crime of entering 'an enemy country' and violating the boycott law against Israel

BEIRUT: Lebanon on Thursday received an Interpol arrest warrant for fugitive businessman Carlos Ghosn following his secret escape from Japan.

The former Nissan chief was awaiting trial in Japan on financial misconduct charges but evaded authorities and detection to travel to Lebanon, arriving in Beirut on New Year’s Eve.

His flit shocked Japan, surprising even his defence team who had three of his passports.

The Interpol wanted notice, or what Lebanon refers to as the Red Notice, reached the Lebanese Internal Security Forces and was transferred to Cassation Public Prosecution.

Judicial sources told Arab News that the notice included an international arrest warrant for Ghosn at the request of Japanese authorities.

The sources said: “The Cassation Public Prosecution is in the process of summoning Carlos Ghosn to question him on the crimes for which he is wanted in Japan. The Japanese authorities might request to attend Ghosn’s hearing. Prosecutor General Ghassan Oueidat‎ is currently appointing a public defender to listen to Ghosn and if the Japanese authorities request to attend the hearing, they can do that or send the questions they wish to ask Ghosn. The accusation against Ghosn is tax evasion. In Lebanon, a Lebanese who commits tax evasion in another country does not get tried. He only gets tried if he commits this crime on Lebanese territory. The sentence for committing this crime in Lebanon does not exceed imprisonment for six months, and Carlos Ghosn has spent this period and more (in the place) where he committed his crime.”

He stands accused of two counts of under-reporting his salary by tens of millions of dollars from 2010 to 2018, deferring some of his pay and failing to declare this to shareholders.

Prosecutors also allege he attempted to get Nissan to cover millions of dollars in personal foreign exchange losses during the 2008 financial crisis.

The fourth charge against him is that he allegedly transferred millions from Nissan funds to a dealership in Oman and skimmed off sums for personal use. 

He has consistently denied all charges against him, using his escape to denounce the Japanese justice system and proclaim his innocence.

Meanwhile lawyers Jad Toameh, Hassan Bazzi and Ali Abbas have lodged a complaint with Cassation Public Prosecution against Ghosn for committing the crime of entering “an enemy country” and violating the boycott law against Israel based on information about him signing contracts and attending business conferences in Israel.

Toameh said: “After Israeli collaborator Amer Fakhoury ... entered Lebanon and we lodged a complaint against him, the complaint took its legal course before the examining magistrate. We find ourselves today facing a new similar situation in which Ghosn is involved, and we are awestruck by the silence of the Lebanese political parties affiliated with the resistance in the face of these security breaches.”

But judicial sources told Arab News that Ghosn had entered Israel with a French passport, not as a Lebanese citizen, and that he was the head of the largest carmaker in the world.


Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

Updated 7 sec ago
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Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.

Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

Updated 35 min 46 sec ago
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Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

  • Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
  • War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.


Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

Updated 06 January 2025
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Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

  • A Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free in the first phase.


Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

Updated 06 January 2025
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Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

  • The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory

JERUSALEM: A shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people and wounded seven others on Monday, Israeli medics said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said those killed included two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the ongoing war there.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. The identities of the attackers and those killed were not immediately known. The military said it was looking for the attackers, who fled.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years. Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gunbattle with militants.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centers. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in scores of settlements, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a massive surprise attack nearly 15 months ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast. At least seven infants have died of hypothermia because of the harsh conditions, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.


New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Updated 06 January 2025
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New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Damascus: Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad Al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar Assad last month, official news agency SANA said.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, has arrived in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA reported.
Shaibani also posted a picture of himself on X stepping off a plane, and said he looked forward “to building constructive bilateral relations.”
The officials took office after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus in early December, toppling Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
Their trip to the UAE comes after they visited its Gulf neighbors Qatar on Sunday and Saudi Arabia last week.
Both Qatar and Turkiye, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, reopened their embassies in Damascus in the aftermath of Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Turkiye has long maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, leaving it with a direct line to Damascus.