CAIRO: Disgraced former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn has revealed for the first time how he secretly escaped Japan in late 2019 while on bail for alleged financial misconduct, in an interview with the BBC.

Admitting that he hid in a box and fled the Asian nation on a private jet, Ghosn, who spoke to the BBC from Beirut, said, “The 30 minutes waiting in the box on the plane, waiting for it to take off, was probably the longest wait I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

In December 2019, Ghosn illegally left the country on a private plane from Kansai International Airport in western Japan. Breaking his bail terms including a ban on travel abroad, he arrived in Lebanon in an escape that caught Japan by surprise.

The 67-year-old told the BBC that he had to go to places where he had never been and buy clothes he would never wear in order to give himself the “maximum chance of being successful and absolutely not drawing any attention” to himself.

Ghosn said that the date of his escape had to be set for a “normal day,” taking his usual walk in his usual clothes.

“The plan was I could not show my face so I have to be hidden somewhere,” he said in the BBC report. “And the only way I could be hidden (was) to be in a box or be in a luggage so nobody could see me, nobody could recognize me and the plan could work.”

He added that the plan to hide inside a large box for music equipment was “the most logical one.”

Ghosn said that in the box he did not think about the past or the future and was not scared. He added that his only thought was that if he missed the opportunity to flee Japan, he would have to live the “life of a hostage.”

Regarding his arrest in 2018, Ghosn told the British broadcaster, “The only memory I have of this moment is shock, frozen trauma.”

He claimed that he decided to escape after he was not allowed to see his wife, Carole, while out on bail.

JIJI Press