Tokyo (AFP) - Former Nissan executive Greg Kelly was handed a six-month suspended sentence on Thursday by a Tokyo court over allegations he helped disgraced auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn attempt to conceal income.
The 65-year-old American was detained at the same time as Ghosn in November 2018, but the former Nissan chief jumped bail and fled to Lebanon the following year, leaving Kelly alone to face charges.
Prosecutors had sought two years in prison for Kelly, accusing him of helping Ghosn under-report his income to the tune of 9.1 billion yen ($79 million) between 2010 and 2018.
But the court found him not guilty on the charges for the financial years 2010 to 2016, and guilty for the financial year 2017, handing down a six-month prison sentence suspended for three years.
The American has always denied the accusations, and the trial has been closely watched in Japan and abroad, with the US ambassador to Tokyo saying the case was a top priority.
After the hearing, Kelly said he was "extremely surprised and shocked" by the verdict which his lawyers said they would appeal.
"I have consistently acted by prioritising the best interests of Nissan, and I absolutely did not take part in illegal activities," Kelly said in a Japanese-language written statement.
"While the court gave a not-guilty verdict on the greater part of the allegations, I do not understand why it found me guilty for that one year," he said.
"I am innocent of all charges."
Kelly's team had argued the proposed post-retirement payments were never agreed and there were merely exploratory discussions about a "legal way" to keep Ghosn in the fold after his tenure and prevent him from joining a competitor.
But judge Kenji Shimizu ruled that by fiscal year 2017 Kelly "was aware that there was an unpaid remuneration and the court recognises that there was a conspiracy (between Kelly) with Ghosn and (Nissan executive Toshiaki) Ohnuma."
Ghosn condemned the sentence as "a shocking, save-face verdict".
He said during an online press conference that the ruling was "unfortunately obvious from the beginning and predictable within the hostage justice system of Japan".
"The only uncertainty was how the judge would justify something like this," he added.
'A long three years'
Some have viewed Kelly as little more than a scapegoat in a case that centred on Ghosn, whose audacious escape hidden in an audio-equipment box in December 2019 left Japanese prosecutors red-faced.
"Kelly was arrested with the expectation that he could be 'turned' to testify against Ghosn," said Stephen Givens, a business lawyer in Tokyo who has followed the case.
"When Ghosn escaped to Beirut, the prosecutors were left with a weak, free-standing case against Kelly," he told AFP.
Nissan had pleaded guilty in a separate case, and was ordered Thursday to pay a fine of 200 million yen ($1.7 million).
Kelly has been in Japan since his detention in 2018 and has been joined in Tokyo by his wife.The verdict does mean he should now be able to leave Japan for the first time in three years, which was welcomed by US ambassador to Tokyo Rahm Emanuel.
"While this has been a long three years for the Kelly family, this chapter has come to an end," he said in a statement, offering no comment on the guilty verdict itself.
Japanese prosecutors have a close to 99 percent conviction rate in cases that go to trial, though experts said the outcome in Kelly's case was hard to predict because it was the first of its kind in the country.
For his part, Ghosn, who faced several additional financial misconduct charges, has always insisted he and Kelly are innocent and that Japanese prosecutors worked to help Nissan push him out in a "palace coup".
"There was obviously one victor: the gang in Japan, with some Nissan executives and with their accomplices in the Tokyo prosecutor office, who wanted and succeeded in stopping a merger," he repeated on Thursday.
"This story is far from finished" and legal action against Nissan "is highly probable", he said.
There has been other fallout from the case, with two Americans who helped Ghosn flee the country extradited from the United States to Japan and sentenced last year to between 20 months and two years in prison.
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