INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightAFPImage caption
Things are looking tricky for Mr Ghosn
Carlos Ghosn, Nissan's former
chairman, has now spent three months in jail and faces many more
Japan's former chief prosecutor was, until he unexpectedly resigned on Wednesday, his lawyer, and has declared Mr Ghosn to be a victim of
It is a term few outside Japan will have heard of until now, but what does it mean Living in Japan it's easy to become complacent about
crime - there is so little of it
Japan's incredibly low crime rate is often attributed to a homogeneous culture, small income gap and full employment, but it's also true to
say that many people are just terrified of being arrested
I got my first inkling of why in 2014 when an artist I knew, Megumi Igarashi, was arrested for distributing "obscene material"
Igarashi had made a digital scan of her own genitals, and used that model to make items such as key fobs and a large yellow kayak
Most people thought it hilarious and she was dubbed the "vagina artist"
But Tokyo prosecutors were not amused
They held her incommunicado for three weeks
"Why on Earth would they hold her for three weeks over something so silly" I asked a friend."Because they can," she responded.Image
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Ms Igarashi's case caused a sensation in Japan which has strict obscenity laws
In Britain, only terror suspects can be held without charge for 14 days - and that is controversial
In Japan a shoplifter can be held for 23 days
The pressure to confess"The Japanese criminal justice system is focused on interrogation
The aim is getting a confession," explains Nobuo Gohara, who spent 23 years in the prosecutor's office before resigning
He now works in private practice and campaigns for reform of Japan's justice system
"A suspect who admits to the crime is released from imprisonment," Mr Gohara tells me
"But if a person refuses to admit to a crime, the prosecutor's office will strongly oppose release until the suspect makes a confession."
That is what happened to Tomohiro Ishikawa
In 2010, the then sitting MP was arrested and accused of taking bribes
For three weeks he was held in a tiny unheated cell
Each day he was interrogated for 12 hours without a lawyer present
He eventually admitted to a lesser offence and nearly 10 years later he is still bitter.Image copyrightAFPImage caption
Tomohiro Ishikawa was held three weeks in a tiny cell
He later admitted to a lesser offence.
"Japanese prosecutors are very persistent," he told me
"They write the plot out before they make the arrest.""Then they force you to confess according to their storyline
In my interrogation they didn't write down what I had said
[Instead] they would show me what they had prepared beforehand then demand I sign it
Many times, I told them I would not sign, because it [the statement] was not what I had said." "Sometimes they shouted at me," he said
"At one point the deputy chief prosecutor started crying, asking me why was I lying." This pressure to confess is even more worrying given
that 89% of criminal convictions in Japan are based partly or wholly on confessions
There are numerous examples of people spending years in prison for crimes they didn't commit or where serious doubts have emerged because of
apparently "unsafe" confessions
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Iwao Hakamada is still fighting to clear his name
A former professional
boxer named Iwao Hakamada was sentenced to death for murder in 1968
His conviction was based on a confession he made under prolonged interrogation and later withdrew
In 2014, after 46 years on death row, Mr Hakamada was released because his sentence was considered unsafe and there was no evidence to
At 82, he is still fighting to clear his name as he awaits a possible retrial.The power of prosecutorsAccording to Mr Gohara, the root of
the problem is the enormous power of prosecutors
"Under Japanese law, the prosecutor's office has the exclusive right to indict
They also have the right to drop charges
This means that the prosecutor's office is very powerful in the Japanese criminal justice system
On top of that in most cases, the courts follow the prosecutor's decisions." In a recent editorial in the Japan Times, Doshisha University
law professor Colin Jones described the extraordinary position senior prosecutors hold: "While the top official at the Justice Ministry is
ostensibly the administrative vice minister, in reality he is inferior both in terms of seniority and pay grade to the prosecutor general
and several other top prosecutors and, unlike most other senior bureaucrats, their uppermost ranks are appointed through a process that
involves attestation by the Emperor."This is the system the accused, like Carlos Ghosn, find themselves up against, where if you don't
confess you will be held longer and more serious charges will probably be laid against you
If prosecutors do file charges your chances of being found guilty stand at 99%
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The former tycoon says he is being treated as guilty before he can prove his innocence
"Officially there is presumption of innocence" says Mr Gohara
"But even if the suspect is not guilty, there is an advantage for them to admit to the crime
This is the most evil effect of Japan's hostage justice system." After the first 23 days of detention the ordeal is not necessarily over
Prosecutors are permitted to re-arrest a suspect on a slightly different accusation, with approval from the courts
The clock is then reset and another 20 days of interrogation begin
This is what happened to Carlos Ghosn, twice
In all he was held in interrogation for 53 days before being formally indicted
No bail for GhosnIn many countries, formal indictment would be the trigger for a suspect to be released on bail
But again, not in Japan - as Carlos Ghosn has found out
In a recent interview with the French news agency AFP, Mr Ghosn said the refusal of the Tokyo court to grant him bail would "not be normal
He accused the court of "punishing me before finding me guilty"
Mr Ghosn has now been allowed to meet with family members - for 15 minutes a day, through a glass window
Contrast his treatment with another recent high-profile arrest, this time in Canada
On 1 December last year, Chinese businesswoman Meng Wanzhou was arrested at Vancouver airport
Ms Meng is the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei
She is wanted in the United States, accused of conspiring to breach international sanctions against Iran
Ten days after her arrest, on 11 December, Ms Meng was released on bail of 10 million Canadian dollars
She is now staying in one of her two Vancouver homes, and is obliged to wear an electronic ankle tag
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Huawei's Meng Wanzhou merely has to hear an electronic ankle tag
Japanese prosecutors point out there is no legal provision for keeping suspects under house arrest or compelling them to wear an electronic
But former detainee Tomohiro Ishikawa says he does not believe the courts' refusal to grant bail is because it fears Mr Ghosn will flee
"I think it would be very hard for someone like Mr Ghosn to hide
If he did (flee) his reputation would be destroyed
I think they are keeping him to harass him
They want him to admit he is guilty."Defenders of Japan's system deny that confessions are behind the 99.9% conviction rate
They say it is because Japanese prosecutors indict at a much lower rate than in the US
In other words, they only indict when they are sure they can win
In 2015, the prosecution rate was 33.4%, official figures show
The gatekeepers of justiceBut Carlos Ghosn's case raises questions
Several lawyers have told me the case against him looks weak
In an editorial in the Nikkei newspaper, corporate lawyer Stephen Givens describes the case against him as "thin soup"
"By any objective measure, the misconduct alleged was less serious than the corporate misfeasance that is routinely overlooked in Japan," he
"Nothing we know that [Mr] Ghosn allegedly did smells like a serious crime deserving prison." So why is the special investigation unit of
the Tokyo prosecutor's office pursuing this case so hard Mr Ishikawa believes Mr Ghosn's real crime, in the eyes of Japan's prosecutorial
He was the first CEO in Japan to earn millions of dollars a year, and that changed Japanese corporate culture
"The Tokyo prosecutor's office… is driven by their belief that they are the gatekeepers of justice
In an era of economic inequality, they want to make their name as the ones who nailed the rich." As Mr Ghosn sits in his detention cell
planning his strategy, he must know there is one more sting in the tail of Japan's justice system - there is no double jeopardy
If he beats the odds and is found innocent of the charges against him, the prosecutor's office can appeal to the high court to have that
It is, say critics, one more reason so many Japanese criminal suspects confess
