【日英字幕】カルロスゴーンの独占インタビュー｜日本の「人質司法制度」について語る

When you get in the box, you don't think about the past, you don't think about the future, you just think about the moment. If you miss it, you're going to pay it with your life, with a life hostage in Japan. I feel sorry for all the people who are victims of the hostage justice system in Japan. Totally irrational. Don't go to Japan unless they change the hostage justice system, because you don't know how much risk you're taking. It was a normal day, and you know, for the first time, the policeman at the passport control said there was a problem with my visa and my passport, and he took me in a special room where I was supposed to clear this with the employee in charge. And in fact, the person I met was the Tokyo prosecutor. And then when I said, well, you know what, I need to make a phone call because people are waiting for me, he said, you can't use your phone. So all of a sudden, I knew that there was something very serious going on. The only memory I have of this moment is shock, frozen trauma. One minute you're a globetrotting chief exec, the next minute you are essentially incarcerated. What was that experience like? Where were you taken and what was it like? They took me to the detention center of Tokyo, which is called the Kosuge prison, and you know, they stripped me of everything and gave me the usual clothes of a detainee. And I all of a sudden had to learn to live without the watch, without the computer, without the telephone, without the news, without the pen, nothing. That mean in a cell, which was very small, adapted to, obviously, the Japanese standard of living, which means you don't have a bed, you don't have a chair, you just have to sit on a tatami. Japanese conviction rates are famously, I think, 99 percent, and you've called it a hostage justice system. You were then released on bail, then re-arrested, then released on bail again. At what point did you decide, and why did you decide, that you had to try and escape and make a run for it? My lawyers, my Japanese lawyers, told me, look, don't count on a fair trial. But we think that with all the arguments we have, with all the proofs we have, we can get you acquitted. But frankly, I started to doubt what my lawyers were telling me when I saw that the prosecutors were asking for very punishing conditions of home residents. All of this led me, probably a few weeks before my departure, to say, if I want to have any hope to have one day a normal life, I'm going to have to leave. How did you manage to concoct this plan whilst under such scrutiny? I know that Japanese don't like to be surprised, which means when you surprise them, they're not very well organised. So combining all these elements, I organised, I must admit, a very bold plan to get out, a very simple and bold plan to get out, and it was successful. And you brought in two people to help you get out, under the cover of them being musicians. What was the plan? Talk us through how you actually escaped. I was very known in Japan, as you know, being CEO of a very large Japanese company. And the only way I could be hidden is to be in a box, or be in a luggage. So the idea of a music box was the most logical one, particularly that around this time there were a lot of concerts in Japan, and there were a lot of musicians coming to Japan to participate to this concert. Talk us through, what was it like being inside a musical instrument box, and what were the most stressful moments? When you get in the box, you don't think about the past, you don't think about the future, you just think about the moment. And you need to be totally concentrated on what's going on, because you don't see anything, you just can hear people around you. And you need to be ready to react, no matter what happens. You're not afraid, you don't have any emotion except the huge concentration on, this is your chance, you can't miss it. If you miss it, you're going to pay it with your life, with a life hostage in Japan. And the most difficult moment were, particularly when you're in a box, you're in the plane, and you're waiting for the plane to take off. And you know, the plane was scheduled to take off at 11 p.m. that night. We were ready, and I was in the box in the rear of the plane, probably around 10, 30. And these 30 minutes waiting in the box, in the plane, waiting for the plane to take off, were probably the longest period of wait I've ever experienced in my life. OK, and well, finally you got out of Japan, changed planes in Istanbul, and made it to where you are now, in Beirut. Did you feel a sense of triumph? You know, when I landed in Beirut, obviously it was thrilling that I made it against all the odds. And, you know, you don't escape Japan easily. Why do you think they decided to turn on you? You were credited with saving Nissan. You became a legend in Japanese business. You had manga comics about you. You were one of the most popular people there. You were in celebrity magazines. You were riding high. When do you think the relationship with Nissan began to go bad? Why? I was conscious of the opposition. I was conscious of the fact that a lot of people in the public opinion in Japan didn't like that, didn't like the fact that the foreigner was a role model, was considered as a kind of reference in terms of management. And they resented all this publicity around me. They turned on me because they were very upset by the behavior of the French state, who doubled its voting rights as a shareholder of Renault, while at the same time opposing any voting right to Nissan. So getting rid of me could happen through a board meeting. But if it was only a board meeting, I would come back at the head of Renault. And owning 43 percent of the shares of Nissan, I can turn the table on them. So it was necessary that the elimination would be radical. And that's how they came to the conclusion that a legal problem would be the best solution. Do you consider yourself totally blameless? Look, nobody can say, you know, I spent 19 years heading a company and, you know, there is nothing I could not have done differently. I mean, it doesn't exist. This being said, the action and the reaction, both in Japan and France, has been totally disproportionate, totally irrational. If you hadn't escaped, where do you think you would be right now? I would be rotting in Japan in front of a trial. You know, when I look at my ex-colleague Greg Kelly, who is still being tried for one charge, which is complicity in the non-declaration of a compensation that was neither decided nor paid, he's still being tried. He has been in Japan now for two years and a half. I've been told that the end of the trial will be probably by the end of this year. The two people who came to assist you and get you out of jail, they have been extradited from the US to Japan and could be facing lengthy jail terms themselves. You got out. How do you feel about, do you have any regrets about the people that are still there because of you facing jail time? I feel sorry for all the people who are victims of the hostage justice system in Japan, all of them. I think this tragedy is attracting the attention on a system which, frankly, not a lot of people realized. When you have a prosecutor winning in 99.4 percent of the cases, when you have no right to a lawyer, when you are being dealt by a justice system that doesn't care about you understanding because there was no translator. My friendly advice is, don't go to Japan unless they change the hostage justice system because you don't know how much risk you're taking.