Carlos Ghosn ‘betrayed’ me, says US man who helped ex-Nissan boss flee Japan

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Updated 29 September 2023
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Carlos Ghosn ‘betrayed’ me, says US man who helped ex-Nissan boss flee Japan

  • Ex-soldier Michael Taylor, who was imprisoned with his son in Japan, claimed Trump administration also abandoned them
  • Alleges that his family’s welfare was trumped by considerations of lucrative defense contracts

CHICAGO: Michael Taylor, the former US Army Green Beret who engineered and executed the daring escape from Japan of fraud-accused former Nissan head Carlos Ghosn, says he was “betrayed” by his client. 

Taylor and his son Peter, who consulted for Ghosn on Search Engine Optimization, were both charged and convicted of aiding Ghosn’s December 2019 escape from Tokyo to Lebanon, via Istanbul, in a large music box. 

Taylor made the comments during an appearance Wednesday, Sept. 27, on the Ray Hanania Radio Show, hosted by the US Arab Radio Network and sponsored by Arab News. 

Taylor spent two years in prison while Peter served 18 months, claiming their conditions of incarceration were the equivalent of “torture.” 

Taylor claimed Ghosn never reached out to him and his son while they were in the Japanese prison. He added that he also felt betrayed by the US government and former President Donald Trump. 

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“Yes. We were definitely betrayed. My poor son Peter had nothing to do with the operation itself. He wasn’t even in the country when I pulled Carlos Ghosn out of Japan. He, by coincidence, happened to be there because he had seen Carlos before doing Search Engine Optimization work for him, boosting up his good articles and pushing down the bad ones. So, yeah, we were definitely betrayed. There is no issue about that,” Taylor said when asked if Ghosn had lived up to his promises. 

“But we were also betrayed by the Trump administration, by President (Donald) Trump and (former US Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo. This was not a crime. However, if there is business involved, and major defense contractors, you know, people start finding excuses to make things happen and go along with it and have the US Attorney (General) push a little bit harder than normal, and have the State Department suck it up to the Japanese, and all the lobbyists are getting involved.  

“And none of the politicians want to step up and do anything including like your own state senators, like Elizabeth Warren and (Ed) Markey. They didn’t want to get involved. Well, you know some of the interesting aspects are that the Japanese spend $138 million a year on lobbyists inside the Beltway.” 

Ghosn, who now lives in Beirut, was arrested in Japan in 2018 on charges of underreporting income and other corporate crimes, which he has denied. Lebanon’s authorities refuse to extradite their citizens and instead have opted for a local trial that began in early September. 

But while Ghosn, a multimillionaire, has enjoyed freedom in Beirut over nearly four years, Taylor said Ghosn never contacted him either to express gratitude for his help, sympathy for the imprisonment, or to provide assistance with his mounting legal debt. 

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“No ... and Peter wasn’t contacted either (by Ghosn). However, and Peter went to Lebanon, and he wasn’t contacted. Greg Kelly did reach out to us, he’s just checking on us to see how we were doing, mentally and physically, which was really, really kind of him and shows what a gentleman he is,” Taylor told Arab News when asked if Ghosn ever reached out to them during the trial or while they were imprisoned.  

Greg Kelly is a former Nissan executive who was convicted in 2022 for helping Ghosn contravene Japan’s pay disclosure laws, and sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for three years. 

Taylor said he still holds out hope Ghosn will live up to the terms of an undisclosed financial agreement for his services, and possibly cover his outstanding legal bills of more than $1 million. 

But Taylor said he sold the rights to his story to MGM which is preparing to make a movie with actor Sam Rockwell playing him and Javier Bardem portraying Ghosn. Whether he sees money from the movie depends on its success, he said. Both Rockwell and Bardem won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor roles in separate films — Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” (2008) and Rockwell in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017). 

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“Well, right now, there is an agreement in place to pay certain amounts, but that agreement is way too long. I am out of pocket $842,000 for legal fees. That is just what I have spent. I haven’t gotten that back yet. That is my first priority to get that back first,” Taylor said. 

“Yes, I did get some renumeration. However, I still have well over a million dollars outstanding in legal fees that I owe.” 

Taylor declined to detail how much Ghosn agreed to pay him: “I don’t want to go into all of the details. But if I saved you, Ray, or if I saved (attorney) Dr. (William) Cleary, and we had an agreement beforehand that if there are legal fees you’re paying for them, wouldn’t you feel responsible to pay them?” 

Ghosn described a four-part Apple+ TV series as “interesting” but also “unfortunate” for failing to tell the “whole story.” He seemed especially perturbed by the fact that during an interview in the documentary, Ghosn describes himself as “the victim,” and made no mention of the Taylors’ fate. 

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“Mind you, Carlos barely did any time compared to us. My son Peter did 13-and-a-half months in solitary confinement and I did 17 months in solitary confinement. And during that time, six and one-half months, I was only allowed to take two showers. You sit on the floor. The lights are on 24 hours a day seven days a week, and nothing. You get no help. You get no nothing. And there is no heat in the wintertime. So you get frostbite on your hands and your feet. In the summertime people are constantly getting heatstroke and are being yanked out of there.” 

“The United Nations declares that 15 consecutive days or more of solitary confinement is considered torture. Seventeen months is a lot longer than 15 days. So that is definitely torture. You are allowed very little communications as well. You are only allowed four letters a month to write.” 

Taylor seemed to hold back his deepest feelings, acknowledging he remains hopeful Ghosn lives up to what he views as broken promises. 

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“You know Ray, that’s one of those questions where I would say life has a lot of strange twists and turns and one never knows what could happen in the near future,” Taylor said when asked if he was trying to hold back harsher criticism of Ghosn for his alleged betrayal. 

Asked if he would testify in Ghosn’s defense if he were somehow forced to face charges outside of Lebanon, Taylor said: “Would you testify in Ghosn’s defense?” 

“I wouldn’t have anything to say in his defense. Remember, in his own words, he is the victim. Nobody else. He is the victim. He is the victim,” Taylor stressed. 

Taylor said that he was introduced to Ghosn by friends who suggested he help the wealthy and high-profile former Nissan CEO. He said his sister-in-law is a second cousin to Ghosn. 

Also appearing on the radio show to argue that Taylor was falsely charged, was Dr. William Cleary, an American who has spent more than 30 years practicing law in Japan, and who tried unsuccessfully to convince federal prosecutors that the Taylors did not commit any crimes.

The Ray Hanania Radio Show is broadcast every Wednesday in Detroit on WNZK AM 690 radio and in Washington D.C. on WDMV AM 700 on the US Arab Radio Network.

You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.


Mahmoud Khalil vows to continue protesting Israel and the war in Gaza after release from detention

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Mahmoud Khalil vows to continue protesting Israel and the war in Gaza after release from detention

NEWARK: A Palestinian activist who was detained for more than three months pushed his infant son’s stroller with one hand and cheered as he was welcomed home Saturday by supporters including US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Mahmoud Khalil greeted friends and spoke briefly to reporters at New Jersey’s Newark International Airport a day after leaving a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. A former Columbia University graduate student and symbol of President Donald Trump ‘s clampdown on campus protests, he vowed to continue protesting Israel and the war in Gaza.
“The US government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he said. “This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine.”
Joining Khalil at the airport, Ocasio-Cortez said his detention violated the First Amendment and was “an affront to every American.”
“He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” she said.
“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “They are violating the law, and they know that they are violating the law.”
Khalil, a 30-year-old legal resident whose wife gave birth during his 104 days of detention, said he also will speak up for the immigrants he left behind in the detention center.
“Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone in this land, you’re not illegal. That doesn’t make you less of a human,” he said.
Khalil was not accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. However the administration has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for expressing views it considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Khalil was released after US District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal resident who was unlikely to flee and had not been accused of any violence. The government filed notice Friday evening that it was appealing Khalil’s release.

More than 50 Colombian soldiers held by residents in restive region: army

Updated 16 min 46 sec ago
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More than 50 Colombian soldiers held by residents in restive region: army

  • In conflict addled regions of Colombia, some illegal groups at times order civilians to carry out actions to impede the advance of security forces
  • Those civilians are usually released hours later after the intervention of human rights organizations

BOGOTA: More than 50 Colombian soldiers were being held captive Sunday by residents of a guerrilla-controlled region in the southwest of the country, the army said.
A first platoon of soldiers was carrying out an operation in El Tambo, a municipality part of an area known as the Micay Canyon — a cocaine-producing enclave — when civilians detained them on Saturday.
On Sunday another group of soldiers was surrounded by at least 200 residents as they headed toward El Plateado, another town in the region.
“As a result of both events, a total of four non-commissioned officers and 53 professional soldiers remain deprived of their liberty,” the army said.
In conflict-ridden regions of Colombia, some illegal groups at times order civilians to carry out actions to impede the advance of security forces. They are usually released hours later after the intervention of human rights organizations.
General Federico Alberto Mejia said in a video that it was a “kidnapping” by guerrillas who had “infiltrated” the community.
The army has maintained that the farmers receive orders from the so-called Central General Staff (EMC), the main FARC dissident group that did not sign the 2016 peace agreement with the then government.
President Gustavo Petro on Sunday urged farmers to “stop believing in armed groups who obey foreigners,” referring to the guerrillas’ alleged ties to Mexican cartels.
“We want to spread peace, but freeing the soldiers, who are their own children, is imperative,” the leftist president wrote on social media platform X.
Petro has been trying for months to ensure that the Armed Forces gain access to the entire Micay Canyon.
In March, 28 police officers and a soldier were held captive by local residents in the same area. All were released two days later.
Colombia is experiencing its worst security crisis in the last decade. Petro attempted to negotiate peace with the EMC, but its main leader, known as “Ivan Mordisco,” abandoned the talks.


‘Highly undesirable’: Dutch host NATO during political crisis

Updated 33 min 46 sec ago
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‘Highly undesirable’: Dutch host NATO during political crisis

THE HAGUE: For a small country like the Netherlands, organizing a NATO summit is a big endeavour at the best of times. The government collapsing three weeks beforehand has not exactly made life easier.
With whole districts and key roads blocked for weeks, and schools and businesses closed, the usually serene seaside city of The Hague has certainly felt the force of the impending summit.
To much grumbling, even some cycle lanes have been shut down, usually unthinkable in the land of bikes.
Dozens of trees have also been uprooted to make way for the temporary buildings housing the thousands of delegates and journalists attending the summit.
For the Netherlands, welcoming 32 world leaders including US President Donald Trump is quite simply the biggest event it has ever hosted in terms of security.
The country is deploying some 27,000 police officers, around half its total force.
And all of this while Dutch politics is still reeling from far-right leader Geert Wilders’s withdrawal from the government in a row over immigration.
The sudden departure of Wilders and his far-right Freedom Party brought down a shaky coalition, with fresh elections now slated for October 29.
“It is highly undesirable to host such an important summit when the government has fallen and new elections are expected,” Claes de Vreese, political communications professor at the University of Amsterdam, told AFP.
It borders on embarrassing, stormed outgoing foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp, describing the withdrawal of Wilders three weeks before the summit as “scandalous.”
Fortunately, noted De Vreese, the Dutch parliament gave its green light to the defense spending increases at the center of the summit.
“This gives weight and legitimacy to the participation” of outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof at the summit, said the expert.
But as the government is a lame-duck administration, the next government will have to find the cash.


Speaking of cash, the estimated cost of the NATO summit is 183.4 million euros ($211 million), or just over one million euros per minute, according to Dutch daily AD.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has chopped back the leaders’ meeting to just two-and-a-half hours on Wednesday morning, reportedly to appease Trump, not known to love lengthy summits.
At least Rutte himself will feel at home.
The NATO boss is a born-and-bred “Hagenaar” (citizen of the Hague), still has a house in the city and is often seen at weekends on his bike or shopping at his local supermarket despite his move to Brussels.
And despite the government collapse complicating matters, it is really NATO taking on the bulk of the organization.
“We’re not hosting the summit, that’s the secretary general,” said Schoof.
“But the host country does play an important role. The whole world will be looking at the Netherlands,” Schoof told reporters.
Much of the attention will naturally be on Trump — although there is a question mark over his appearance given the US strikes on Iran.
It falls to Noordwijk, a peaceful coastal resort between Schiphol Airport and The Hague, to host the US president, who will stay in a sumptuous hotel overlooking the North Sea — if he turns up.
His route in has been completely blocked off since Sunday — like several others in the city.
Some frustrated citizens of The Hague have asked why the summit couldn’t be held in Veluwe, a national park with no one around — or even at the airport.
At an anti-NATO protest the weekend before the summit, Alfons Vryland, a 54-year-old teacher, noted the irony of holding a military alliance meeting in the self-styled City of Peace and Justice.
“I’m embarrassed that they’re here talking about war instead of peace in my country, in this city,” Vryland told AFP.
Jan van Zanen, the city’s amiable mayor, sought to reassure everyone, from the crisis-hit PM to the average Hagenaar.
“I know people think that I’m a magician as mayor of The Hague, but I couldn’t prevent the government collapsing,” he told AFP.
“The impact (of the government falling) is there, but where we can, we’ve limited it to the utmost,” he said.
“Yes, the Netherlands is ready.”


Japan Prime Minister Ishiba to skip NATO summit, source says

Updated 45 min 28 sec ago
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Japan Prime Minister Ishiba to skip NATO summit, source says

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is planning to cancel his attendance at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in the Hague, a source with direct knowledge said on Monday.
Broadcaster Fuji Television said Ishiba was canceling the trip because a planned meeting between NATO and a group of four Indo-Pacific nations (IP-4) would likely not take place, and because a meeting with US President Donald Trump was also unlikely.
South Korea and Australia, which along with the US and Japan make up the IP-4, have also said their leaders would not attend the NATO summit meeting.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya will represent Japan, the source said, declining to be identified because the plan is not public.


Emaciated after 5 years in prison, Belarusian dissident Tsikhanouski vows to fight on

Updated 23 June 2025
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Emaciated after 5 years in prison, Belarusian dissident Tsikhanouski vows to fight on

  • Siarhei Tsikhanouski was sentenced to 19 years and six months on charges widely seen as politically motivated

VILNIUS: Siarhei Tsikhanouski is almost unrecognizable. Belarus’ key opposition figure, imprisoned in 2020 and unexpectedly released on Saturday, once weighed 135 kilograms (298 pounds) at 1.92 meters (nearly 6’4”) tall, but now is at just 79 kilos (174 pounds).
On Saturday, Tsikhnaouski was freed alongside 13 other prisoners and brought to Vilnius, the capital of neighboring Lithuania, where he was reunited with his wife, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and their children. Speaking to The Associated Press the day after, Tsikhanouski tries to smile and joke, but struggles to hold back heavy sighs recalling what he endured behind bars.
“This is definitely torture,” Tsikhanouski told The Associated Press in the first sit-down interview since his release. Prison officials “kept telling me: ‘You will be here not just for the 20 years we’ve already given you.’ We will convict you again,’” he said. “They told me that ‘You would never get out.’ And they kept repeating: ‘You will die here.’”
One of Belarus’s most prominent opposition figures, Tsikhanouski said he “almost forgot how to speak” during his years in solitary confinement. He was held in complete isolation, denied medical care, and given barely enough food.
“If you had seen me when they threw only two spoons of porridge onto my plate, two small spoons …” he said, adding that he couldn’t buy anything anything in the prison kiosk. “They would sometimes give me a little tube of toothpaste, a little piece of soap as charity. Sometimes they would, sometimes they wouldn’t.”
A prominent voice of dissent
Now 46, Tsikhanouski, a popular blogger and activist, was freed just hours after Belarusian authorities announced that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko met with US President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Keith Kellogg became the highest-ranking US official in years to visit Belarus, Moscow’s close and dependent ally.
Tsikhanouski, known for his anti-Lukashenko slogan “stop the cockroach,” was arrested after announcing plans to challenge the strongman in the 2020 election and shortly before the campaign began. He was sentenced to 19 years and six months on charges widely seen as politically motivated. His wife ran in his stead, rallying crowds across the country. Official results handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office but were denounced by the opposition and the West as a sham.
Lukashenko has since tightened his grip, securing a seventh term in disputed January 2025 elections. Since mid-2024, his government has pardoned nearly 300 prisoners — including US citizens — in what analysts see as an attempt to mend ties with the West.
Tsikhanouski credited US President Donald Trump with aiding his release.
“I thank Donald Trump endlessly,” Tsikhanouski said. “They (the Belarusian authorities) want Trump to at least, a little bit, somewhere, to meet them halfway. They are ready to release them all. All of them!”
Many are still behind bars
Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets in the aftermath of the August 2020 vote. Thousands were detained, many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures either fled the country or were imprisoned.
At least 1,177 political prisoners remain in custody, according to Viasna, the oldest and most prominent human rights group in Belarus. Among them is Viasna’s founder, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski.
Also behind bars are Viktor Babaryka, a former banker who was widely seen in 2020 as Lukashenko’s main electoral rival, and Maria Kolesnikova, a close ally of Tsikhanouskaya and charismatic leader of that year’s mass protests.
A surprise release and an emotional reunion
Tsikhanouski called his release “a dream that’s still hard to believe.” On Saturday, he said, guards removed him from a KGB pretrial detention center, put a black bag over his head, and handcuffed him before transporting him in a minibus. He and other prisoners had no idea where they were going.
“To be honest, I still can’t believe it. I was afraid I’d wake up and everything would still be the same. I don’t believe it, I still don’t believe it,” he said, pausing frequently and wiping away tears.
Tsikhanouski’s children — his daughter, aged 9, and 15-year-old son — didn’t recognize him when they were reunited.
“We came in and my wife said to my daughter, ‘Your dad has arrived,’” he said, crying. “At first she couldn’t understand, and then she rushed in — she was crying, I was crying ... for a very long time. My son too! These are emotions that cannot be described.”
Tsikhanouski, who says his health has deteriorated behind bars, plans to undergo a medical examination in Lithuania. He says cold and hunger were “the main causes of illness” that affected nearly all political prisoners in Belarus, who were subjected to “especially harsh conditions.”
“There were skin diseases, and everyone had kidney problems from the cold — and no one really understood what was happening,” Tsikhanouski said. “Blood came out of my mouth, from my nose. Sometimes I had convulsions — but it was all because of the cold, that terrible cold when you sit in those punishment cells.”
“There is no medical care in prison — none at all, just so you know …” he said.
Tsikhanouski said conditions slightly improved after the February 2024 death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a prison colony.
“When Alexei Navalny died, I thought, that’ll probably be me soon … And then something changed. It was clear that someone at the top said, ‘Make sure he doesn’t die here. We don’t need that problem.’ It got just a bit softer ... At some point, word came down: Tsikhanouski must be kept alive, not killed.”
Pointing the finger at Putin
Tsikhanouski blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for propping up Lukashenko, both during the 2020 protests and to this day.
Russia supports Belarus’s economy with loans and subsidized oil and gas. In return, Belarus has allowed Moscow to use its territory to launch troops and weapons into Ukraine, and hosts Russian forces and nuclear weapons.
Tsikhanouski expressed strong support for Ukraine, calling the Kremlin a common evil for both countries.
“If it weren’t for Putin, we would already be living in a different country. Putin recognized Lukashenko’s victory in the election, he called black white. That is, he refused to see the falsifications,” Tsikhanouski said. “They help each other. Because of Putin, this illegal government is still in Belarus.”
Some analysts have speculated that by releasing the charismatic and energetic Tsikhanouski, Belarusian authorities may be trying to sow division within the opposition. But Tsikhanouski insists he has no intention of challenging his wife’s role as the internationally recognized head of the Belarusian opposition, and he calls for unity.
“Under no circumstances do I plan to criticize any Belarusians, condemn or complain about anyone,” he said.
Tsikhanouski says he will not stop fighting and wants to return to active work as both a political figure and a blogger. But he is skeptical that Lukashenko, now 70, will step down voluntarily, despite his age.
“I don’t know anymore — will he go or won’t he?” Tsikhanouski said. “Many people say nothing will change until he dies. But I’m still counting on democratic forces winning.”