Greg Kelly, a former Nissan executive accused of helping the automaker’s one-time saviour, Carlos Ghosn, commit financial crimes has been given a suspended prison sentence by a court in Tokyo.
Kelly, 65, was detained in November 2018, at the same time police arrested Ghosn on suspicion of understating his income by millions of dollars, for which he faced a maximum sentence of 10 years.
After a trial lasting 18 months, the Tokyo district court on Thursday sentenced Kelly to six months in prison, suspended for three years.
He had been charged with helping his now-fugitive boss conceal about ¥9.1bn ($79m), which Nissan planned to pay Ghosn after he retired, between 2010 and 2018. Prosecutors had called for Kelly to be given a two-year prison term.
Kelly, a former member of the Nissan board, was found not guilty on the charges relating to the financial years 2010-16, but guilty for the financial year 2017.
After his arrest, Ghosn faced long periods in detention after prosecutors laid several additional charges of financial misconduct, including temporarily transferring personal investment losses to Nissan.
The case took a dramatic turn in late 2019 when Ghosn fled the country while on bail, leaving Kelly to face the charges alone.
While Ghosn continues to protest his innocence from his childhood home in Lebanon, which does not have an extradition treaty with Japan, Kelly’s trial has been closely watched in Japan and in his native US.
The US embassy in Japan said it was “relieved that the legal process has concluded”, and that Kelly could return home with his wife.
“While this has been a long three years for the Kelly family, this chapter has come to an end,” the US ambassador, Rahm Emanuel, said in a statement. “He and Dee can begin their next chapter in Tennessee. May the next phase of the Kelly family reunion bring joy and happiness.”
Kelly has been unable to leave Japan since his detention and has been joined in Tokyo by his wife, who had to enrol in Japanese lessons to secure a visa to stay in the country.
His lawyers previously said they would appeal any guilty verdict, even if the sentence was suspended.
Ghosn, once hailed as a hero in Japan for rescuing Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy in the late 1990s, was smuggled out of the country inside a box that was loaded on to a private jet at Japan’s Kansai airport in December 2019.
He was flown to Turkey and then on to Lebanon, where he has citizenship.
Last July, a Japanese court sentenced US army special forces veteran Michael Taylor to two years in prison and his son Peter to one year and eight months for their part in helping Ghosn flee.
Ghosn’s treatment after his arrest drew international criticism and claims that he was the victims of Japan’s “hostage justice” system.
