Ghosn, suffering from kidney failure, was arrested illegally: defense document

I have stage 3B CKD can only eat special foods and must limit phosphorous, salt, protein. Many foods considered healthy for normal people like fresh vegetables, fruits etc are dangerous for us. I doubt Japanese jail food could meet the strict food requirements necessary to maintain kidney function.

Eating well for years can cause a variety of ailments. Humble meals served in the detention center should help lower Ghosn’s cholesterol level.

I have stage 3B CKD can only eat special foods and must limit phosphorous, salt, protein. Many foods considered healthy for normal people like fresh vegetables, fruits etc are dangerous for us. I doubt Japanese jail food could meet the strict food requirements necessary to maintain kidney function.

I have heard that daily meals consist of unsold Bentos from the day before for breakfast and dinner. For lunch, it is bread and water. Apparently, you can purchase extra amenities, but I don't know if they are expensive or not. He is wealthy, but his specialized diet might not be an offering.

Cruel and unusual punishment

The Judicial system allows for the treatment of illnesses .

Greg Kelly had / has problems with his neck/ vertebrae and was treated; in fact had surgery..

Ghosn's medical needs will be equally addressed.

Compare the treatment of Japanese politicians where any hint of a prosecution sends them scuttling for a wheelchair and then into hospital for admission!

"Carlos Ghosn's "illegal" arrest has interrupted his care for chronic kidney failure, which the former Nissan Motor boss suffers from as a result of treatment for high cholesterol"

Yeah right. Oldest trick in the book. I am sick. Blame the cops. More likely Ghosn's high cholesterol is due to Ghosn's extravagant lifestyle. By the way, while he was in jail, he was placed on low fat diet which helped lower his cholesterol level and improved his health.

Japan's human rights are on par with China's. And finally the whole world can see it.

One can only hope the defense lawyers can convincingly prove the illegalities of Ghosn's arrest and detention. A Japanese judge stated that he should never have been arrested and this matter should have been handled internally by Nissan. This points to both to a backstabbing corporate coup and an illegal detention. It also shows how the Japanese 'hostage justice' system works. A suspect is guilty until they can prove their innocence and are tortured with solitary confinement and interrogated for hours daily until they confess.

"chronic kidney failure"? Then he would be on dialysis everyday. No dialysis, no "chronic kidney failure". Never heard about him getting dialysis.

may be some of you don't mind to open health issue to public and but some doesn't. heard of privacy?

as to rich diet assumption. heard of genetic disorders??

"Illegal arrest" That will go NOWHERE in Japan.

I talked to friend who was locked up in a local Tokyo jail for fighting.

He said, "It felt like bootcamp."

Schedule:

Typical day went like: Wake up at 7 am, put away blanket, futon, and pillow. Officers shake down your cell.

7:15 brush teeth

8:00 Breakfast (Old bento with Miso soup)

9-9:10 Shave

9:10 -11:30 questioning/book reading

12:00 Lunch (Bread with jam and water) listen to radio

12:30 - 4:30 questioning/book reading

5:00 dinner (Old bento)

6:00-8:30 reading/lawyer counseling

8:45 brush teeth, receive bedding, shake down

9:00 lights out

Showering was allowed every 5 days

Humble meals served in the detention center..

Japanese variety TV showed conditions in a jail recently. On the part about food, it showed the inmates digging in to deep fried items with boiled white rice. If that kind of trans fat and starch combo doesn't kill you, I'd like to know what would.

@semperfi, finding justification for everything the J-proscutors are doing? There’s no need for that. They are corrupt, incompetent, illogical and has no common sense. Detaining someone for the sole reason of destroying evidence, when in fact they don’t use evidence to convict someone reeks of incompetency.

He might have eaten a lot of very expensive high cholesterol food every day. He is a very rich man anyway. He probably did not care about his hospital checkup and blood examination.

I talked to friend who was locked up in a local Tokyo jail for fighting.

He said, "It felt like bootcamp."

Schedule:

Typical day went like: Wake up at 7 am, put away blanket, futon, and pillow. Officers shake down your cell.

7:15 brush teeth

8:00 Breakfast (Old bento with Miso soup)

9-9:10 Shave

9:10 -11:30 questioning/book reading

12:00 Lunch (Bread with jam and water) listen to radio

12:30 - 4:30 questioning/book reading

5:00 dinner (Old bento)

6:00-8:30 reading/lawyer counseling

8:45 brush teeth, receive bedding, shake down

9:00 lights out

Showering was allowed every 5 days

Sounds like vacation at a Holiday Inn compared to the hell of a typical county jail or prison in the United States.

Showering was allowed every 5 days

I have never heard a single justification for forcing detainees (or even prisoners) to be filthy like this. Can anyone offer one? If anything, you would expect an obsessive cleanliness as part of the rehabilitation process.

@kwatt, "He might have eaten a lot of very expensive high cholesterol food every day. He is a very rich man anyway. He probably did not care about his hospital checkup and blood examination."

Your level of compassion is overwhelming. Some of the comments here are cold as ice.

I have consistently said I do not care much for Ghosn but have concerns about the system. He is a human being and has not been tried in a court of law yet.

If he is being denied medication (because they are not Japanese medicines) or not ensuring proper care/diet is given or provided for his conditioning this is not good at all.

Rhabdomyolysis leads to renal failure and renal failure is often fatal.

This is not an issue of hating Japan; even his Japanese attorneys are concerned about this and also are stating the re-arrest is illegal.

I have never heard a single justification for forcing detainees (or even prisoners) to be filthy like this. Can anyone offer one? If anything, you would expect an obsessive cleanliness as part of the rehabilitation process.

I also heard that the lights are on 24hrs a day, so they have to sleep with the lights on!

I also heard that the lights are on 24hrs a day, so they have to sleep with the lights on!

Yeah, my friend said the hallway lights are cut off but not the jail cells. You have to cover your face to sleep. He also said that there is no heating or cooling in the jail, so it can be pretty bad depending on the season.

I have no way of determining whether his condition is real, doctors will be able to determine that and provide documentation if it is.

That being said, this angle is a very well used one in cases of detention in Japanese facilities. It is generally the last trick up the sleeve of any person being detained without chance of release. Which is why we didn't hear about it until now. It's fairly rare for people to be let out of Japanese detention facilities on medical grounds.

You can read several stories per year where people being detained in both immigration centers and police detention centers are extremely ill. They're then released and die within several days. Removing them from the custody of the facility absolves the MOJ of any responsibility for denial of basic health care.

IIRC in 2013 or 2014 a man with a cancerous tumor was held in an immigration facility until 1 week before his death. He was routinely denied medical treatment. When the tumor was finally discovered he had only days to live and was unable to walk.

This is the reality for people being detained in Japan.

Even if he manages to secure release from police custody, unless he has PR in Japan, it is likely his original travel visa has now expired, thus when he's released from police detention, the immigration authorities will be there to arrest him for overstay of his visa and he'll be placed in custody at an immigration detention center. This is how the MOJ operates, it's standard procedure. There's no way to extend your visa while in custody, it is purposefully designed so that any foreigner put in custody can not be freed. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

@alwaysspeaking -

I agree with you. Those conditions are terrible and I also think they are disgusting.

However, this specific article is about Japan.

There seems to be exaggerations about by the defense. They said lost loads of weight while in prison but came out on bail fat. His alleged kidney condition would be the same in prison as out. He was not arrested illegally, but under japanese law.

it seems the defense is clutching at anything. Next they will say he suffers from claustrophobia.

@Goodluck

They said lost loads of weight while in prison but came out on bail fat. His alleged kidney condition would be the same in prison as out. He was not arrested illegally, but under japanese law.

Evidence? The images from his release on bail, and the Japanese news reported that his was quite slim!

I find it amusing that some people are professing the virtues of Japanese prison/detention food.

Let's get a few things straight: Food for prisons is not the same as the food for detention centers. The sources may be the same, but they may also be COMPLETELY different. It's possible food in one prison may be cooked by inmates, but it's also entirely possible that it's completely contracted out to a third party.

In the case of detention centers, detainees are almost never allowed out of their cells. In Carlos Ghosn's case, you are looking at someone who is in solitary confinement for close to 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can forget about people doing kitchen duty in a place like that. His only time out of a cell is to see the lawyer or brush his teeth, and once a week, have a 5-10 minute bath or shower.

Let's talk about the nutrition of these meals. If you have ever met someone who's been in detention a long time, you'll notice right away that they're approaching Auschwitz levels of malnourishment. I interviewed a guy who had been in custody at a detention facility for 8 months (Without trial, just like Ghosn). He was nothing but skin and bones.

The types of food, and the quantity of food, served at detention centers seems to assume everyone being fed has the absolute lowest basal metabolic rate of the average Japanese citizen. Between the morning meal and evening meal, you're looking at perhaps 1,000 calories of energy, most of it coming from white rice. The remainder of the calories are provided at lunch in the form of pure carbohydrates, mostly sugary jam packets and juice boxes. Daily average is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,100 calories, it varies depending on the food served on a particular day. For diabetics or people with medical conditions, there are alternative foods provided, but the alternative foods do not take into consideration the calorie and nutritional deficit created by not having sugary or high starch items. So you end up with some people gradually withering away into walking skeletons, and developing internal organ problems because they're just barely sustaining themselves on small portions of protein and grease.

If you contact the MOJ about what the nutrition of meals provided to detainees or prisoners is, they'll block you at every turn. They will tell you that the meals have been designed to sustain a person and keep them healthy. However if you analyze the content of the average meal it is clear to see that the meals are not even close to healthy, with the majority of items being expired bento boxes full of deep fried, breaded foods, and it is impossible to get even a general figure on what nutritional guidelines are actually being met with these meals. If you follow up with the contractors who supply and make these meals, you may get some nutritional information out of them, and it becomes very clear that you cannot keep a person healthy by feeding them such food for extended periods of time. You have got to remember we're talking about people being detained for months or years at a time, and this is the only thing they can eat to survive. They need to be given decent enough food to prevent muscle atrophy and organ damage.

The reality of the situation is that the MOJ doesn't know nor care what detained people are being fed, so long as they don't die of starvation before they're moved to a prison where the meals actually are regulated and managed by a nutritionist, or in the rarest of cases, just released back to society.

The MOJ provides itself with an escape route: It's possible for detainees at some (Most?) detention facilities to purchase bento boxes made to a higher quality and nutritional standard. They're generally high in price so only those who were carrying a lot of cash at the time of arrest can continue purchasing these for long, or they'll need to have a lawyer bring cash to them.

TLDR: Japanese detention standards are a throwback to the 1800's. Only superficially does it look like modern standards are being met. In reality the conditions are similar to those of third world nations, and slow starvation does occur in certain people detained for long periods.

I can understand some of the bitterness displayed in the comments here. I've never been a big of the rich and famous. I didn't watch Robin Leach. There are tons of billionaires out there who do absolutely nothing for society but bottom feed. I get it.

However, this is the man who saved one of your beloved brands. Admittedly, restructuring meant he had to cut jobs and reposition capital assets. If you were in a hot air balloon that was going down you'd cut sandbags in a heartbeat.

With that said, he deserved his salary and all the money he earned. Don't be so jealous of his lifestyle. There are plenty of Nissan's out on the road because of Ghosn. Or would you rather Nissan have gone down making room GM or Hyundai.

Some of you hate the rich and wealthy. Not all the rich are dirty. Some of them made their fortune doing honorable work. One thing is for sure, he didn't need Nissan's money to do what he wanted in life.

This is just entertainment for some of you but an innocent man is being abused and set up. Separate his case from Nissan and then see if you can get a conviction.

@ksteer

I'm not particularly sure of the intention behind the original post. But she isn't particularly wrong, and I don't see it being particularly bigoted. I have quite a few Korean friends who have moved here from Korea and work as lawyers in Tokyo. I also know a few people who are 在日韓国人, (Koreans who were born and subsequently lived in Japan their entire lives/speak Japanese fluently but just kept their Korean citizenship) and also studying to become lawyers.

I also know lawyers living and working for large corporations in Japan. They also got licensed in their home countries, but they are not practicing in Japan. They are working on projects as they pertain laws in the the country that they are licensed. They are not defending clients infront of a judge just like the people that you mentioned.

Tinawanabe is trying to say that most lawyers working the Japanese justice system is Korean who took a different test because one vice president may have Korean citizenship. Does that make detainees' mistreatment in jail ok?

Always a good addition to a defence to have some kind of health issue.

@Silva - sure looks strange doesn't it? Seems the debate on this issue has devolved dramatically

Kelly had a health condition and was treated eventually, why is our post WW2 american written constiution outline true human rights ?

okay but you can't really call it an illegal arrest when the prosecutors can go even against a court that allowed him bail. They are the law and no one else

Agreed, there should not be a single downvote when criticizing Japan, only upvotes. The JT moderators are obviously manipulating the votes in order to secure funding from the anti-Ghosn conspiracy of which they are also part of.

Or when they see comments that they think will not go over well with advertisers, they begin deleting and downvoting. Japantimes had a whole article about advertising money influencing what they say or what they let their posters say on the website. Why would JT be any different?

Interesting discussion, but based on what is reported and not something we can meaningfully and accurately substantiate.

I have no interest in his guilt or innocence except that he is "presumed" innocent till actually "convicted" by the court.

I do have an interest in humane and sensible care of any person so arrested.

I do have an interest in how and why he was arrested.

I do want BOTH sides to be able to express their facts (not opinions or innuendos or assumptions), but related and substantiated and confirm-able facts to determine the case.

I do want a fair and honest and unbiased judgement based upon the laws of the country, which is Japan.

At this time, I do not think we can make any "judgement" as to whether the laws or the system is good or bad when compared to other countries. We can however, compare and discuss the differences and how that may affect the situation and the outcome.

I do not make judgement as the process and procedures and how the process was carried out by individuals within the judicial and police system. All of that depends upon the situation and circumstances under which the acts took place. And, we are not privy to the exact facts other than what is reported by the media.

Well let's see if the French government will do anything for Ghosn this time. If they continue to forsake him, you know pretty much he's faking it.

“Tokyo prosecutors declined to comment when contacted by Reuters”

does the prosecution really know what it’s gotten itself into? Are the Japanese people fine with their nations reputation being dragged through the mud? Such a terrible thing to be happening during an era change.

He has kidney failure suddenly! He was arrested illegally! This is all part of a grand conspiracy! His wife didn't know about the money laundering! The Earth is flat and chemtrails are real!

If this is all the defense has got, Ghosn is definitely ghosin to jail

Unless they tell us the stage of the "chronic kidney failure", this doesn't really mean anything. But I guess that by using "failure", they are trying to make it sound realy bad.

The charge is “aggravated breach of trust”, not “money laundering”. I guess there’s paper trail that makes the alleged “laundering” legal, so they couldn’t charge him with that. Instead they charged him with ambiguously interpreted “breach of trust”.

More likely Ghosn's high cholesterol is due to Ghosn's extravagant lifestyle.

This is most likely untrue. The best research on cholesterol today is that much of one's cholesterol levels are genetically predisposed. In many cases, a person can eat a high-cholesterol diet, but have low cholesterol. Likewise, one can eat a low-cholesterol diet and have high cholesterol. It's less what you eat and more how your body happens to be programmed to deal with cholesterol. A lot of the health and diet advice that was peddled in the 1980s and 1990s about fat and cholesterol has since turned out to be false, and in many cases that advice harmed health on the whole more than benefited it.

Regardless, cholesterol is not Ghosn's most pressing medical concern, if his lawyer's statements are accurate. Kidney failure is. The kidney failure may have been caused by cholesterol treatments, but any change to his cholesterol level now probably won't reverse his kidney failure. Long-term risks of a heart attack related to cholesterol are much less threatening than the immediate risks of death related to kidney failure. Again, this is assuming Ghosn's lawyers are describing his condition accurately.

@Tokyo-Engr

@Silva - sure looks strange doesn't it? Seems the debate on this issue has devolved dramatically

It sure does!

sad to see a whole bunch of cold hearted comments.

Here are the realities for prisoners in Japanese jails and prisons.

Here is real published Academic Research about Japanese prisons:

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/JAPAN953.PDF

Kelly had a health condition and was treated eventually, why is our post WW2 american written constiution outline true human rights ?

Kenji. oYou can find Japans constitution, and legal / penal constitution in Maruzen bookstore, Nihonbashi. (It used to be on the second floor). It states all the atributes of an advanced legal system included the right to bail, and presumption of innocence.

Something has gone wrong down the line.

It’d be disappointing and odd if Carlos, richer than rich that he is, ‘enriched’ himself for only $5M, surely not and part of the Saikawa plot?

As for the legal system tactics, disgusting, and the law supports it.

does the prosecution really know what it’s gotten itself into? Are the Japanese people fine with their nations reputation being dragged through the mud? Such a terrible thing to be happening during an era change.

I would suggest that the new Head of State directs a Royal Commission to look at all of this. Lets hope that in this new era he is not as inept as his father and grandfather.

I wonder how there can be so many downvotes for comments trying to remain neutral. Something fishy about the type of readers.

Goshn, whether innocent or guilty, had rights.

I know that Japanese don't care much for psychological pressure, but imagine just a second he has real medical physical issue ?

I want Japanese law to apply but not to hurt him while not yet convicted !

I also wonder why we don't hear a word about what said Ms Ghosn during her questioning by police.

If she is free, cannt she express any info ?

I also wonder why we don't hear a word about what said Ms Ghosn during her questioning by police.

If she is free, cannt she express any info ?

Why was it held behind closed doors? No transparency adds to Japans legsl systems dossier of shame.

@ *Hallowed : *He has kidney failure suddenly! He was arrested illegally! This is all part of a grand conspiracy! His wife didn't know about the money laundering! The Earth is flat and chemtrails are real!

*If this is all the defense has got, Ghosn is definitely ghosin to ja**il*

Eloquently stated! True the defense is grasping at straws.

"suffering from kidney failure" doesn't mean anything unless we know the stage (1 to 5). If it were serious, he'd be getting dialysis everyday. Since he was out and about during his release (however short), this is probably this is stage 1, which just means "be a good boy".

alwaysspeakingwisdom Today  07:55 am JST

More likely Ghosn's high cholesterol is due to Ghosn's extravagant lifestyle. By the way, while he was in jail, he was placed on low fat diet which helped lower his cholesterol level and improved his health.

Oh dear. Someone didn't read the article carefully.

The issue isn't high cholesterol. The issue is chronic kidney failure.

It's even in the very top paragraph for easy viewing.

Having said that, though, I wonder why this issue wasn't raised by Ghosn's lawyers before.

Is it really a question of ineptness? Does the Japanese constitution and law have provisions for that?

Probably yes, but the PM and HOS don't know how to use it under Japans post war constitution.

@paradoxbox: It's not appropriate to refer to Auschwitz in this case: talking about japanese inhuman treatment of prisoners, let's just refer to: Changi...

but imagine just a second he has real medical physical issue ?

He surely has a condition or two. Then I know for sure inmates in Japan are allowed to take the medications they need, many of them are healthy in their 90's. His lawyers need to bring his prescription retranscripted by a Japanese doctor instead of talking.

If she is free, cannt she express any info ?

It's her choice. That way, she won't give info that would dug hubby's hole deeper.

Ghosn has chronic kidney failure now? He was going out and walking good all over Tokyo almost everyday after he was bailed out. Everyone thought he has good health. As far as seeing his face, he did not look like suffering at all from the kidney failure.

Carlos Ghosn's "illegal" arrest has interrupted his care for chronic kidney failure - I would suspect he has CKD chronic kidney disease not total kidney failure. As I wrote earlier I have stage 3B CKD must take 10 different meds 3x daily and adhere to very strict diet, e.g. frozen not fresh veggies boiled 10 minutes, small portions of everything, avoid all kinds of foods, high protein, phosphorus, sodium, etc. Japanese doctors kindly gave me 5 charts of foods allowable. I doubt jailhouse chefs would maintain this type of diet.

For readers who don't understand - CKD and other afflictions may not have overt symptoms - I've had 3 strokes, multiple TIA's, quad coronary bypasses and PTSD but appear fine, can walk around swim even go to a pub now and then I just don't eat or drink anything harmful. So appearing healthy doesn't necessary mean he's been lying.

it sounds medieval, before Montesquieu, incomplete separation of powers. I’m not sure if Ghosn misconducted Nissan’s fund illegally but I’m sure Japanese government is misconducting judiciary. Prosecutors and nissan allies should stop manipulating Japanese media to enhance racist speech.

It states all the atributes of an advanced legal system included the right to bail .... Something has gone wrong down the line.

Bail is not an absolute right anywhere. Judges have to agree to it. If a cash or asset requirement is imposed, the person charged has to be able to provide the cash or assets or rely on someone who can provide the cash or assets. It has been estimated that 20-25% of the enormous US prison population is made up of people who either cannot meet bail requirements or have been denied bail.

FREE GHOSN!!!