A Turkish court convicted an executive of Turkish jet company MNG and two pilots for migrant smuggling due to their role in flying former Nissan Motor CEO Carlos Ghosn out of Japan during his escape to Lebanon in December 2019.
The court sentenced them to four years and two months jail, although their lawyer said they were not anticipated to serve time in jail as they had already been detained for several months.
Two other pilots and a flight attendant have been acquitted, while charges were dropped against another flight attendant.
Ghosn was arrested in Japan in 2018 over the allegations of underreporting his salary and using company funds for personal purposes. Ghosn has denied these charges.
Ghosn had been awaiting trial under house arrest in Japan when he escaped in December 2019 via Istanbul to Beirut in a box.
Ghosn, who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship, is still a fugitive and is living in Beirut, Lebanon where he announced several months ago that he was starting a university business programme. Lebanon lacks an extradition treaty with Japan.
An executive from Turkish private jet operator MNG Jet and four pilots were arrested by Turkish officials in early January 2020 and charged with migrant smuggling.
The lawyer for one of the convicted pilots, Erem Yucel, said that they would appeal the verdict.
Convicted pilot Noyan Pasin said that staff and authorities had not suspected anything was wrong with the flight, either in Japan or Turkey, so it was inappropriate to single out the pilots.
“We were expected to be suspicious and were sentenced because we weren’t suspicious,” he informed reporters.
The defendants were released in July, when the first hearing was held, and are not anticipated to return to jail because of the time they have already served. Japan is not said to have requested their extradition to face charges there.
Since the allegations against Ghosn, the worldwide automakers Renault and Nissan have struggled to recover profitability. Both automakers say Ghosn focused a lot on expanding sales and market share.
