A court sitting in Istanbul on Wednesday prescribed jail terms of four years three and two months respectively to two Turks for their role in the plot to smuggle former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn in a musical instrument case from Lebanon to Japan.
The court jailed two pilots and an employee of a small private airline after finding them guilty of moving the former auto industry giant while he was out on bail facing financial misconduct charges in December 2019.
The pilots — Noyan Pasin and Bahri Kutlu Somek — and MNG Jet employee Okan Kosemen were facing a potential maximum of 12 years in prison when charged last month for their suspected involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle a migrant against the extant laws of the European country.
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The pilots told the court on Wednesday that they were innocent because they never suspected that Ghosn was on board their plane.
‘They ask us to fly the plane and that is what we do,‘ Pasin said.
The trial tried to piece together how Ghosn — a French-Lebanese-Brazilian national who was a global business superstar when his career came crashing to an end — managed to find his way from Japan to Lebanon via Istanbul.
The 66-year-old fugitive was earlier arrested in November 2018 and spent 130 days in prison before completing an audacious escape act that humiliated Japanese justice officials and raised questions about who was involved.
The indictment said the escape plan involved a stopover in Istanbul instead of a direct flight ‘so as not to arouse suspicions’.
Former US Green Beret member Michael Taylor and his son Peter are accused of recruiting MNG Jet and overseeing the secret operation.
The two Americans lost their appeal to get their extradition to Japan blocked by the US Supreme Court earlier this month.
The indictment says Taylor and Zayek put Ghosn ‘in a large musical instrument case’ and then took him through security at Japan’s Osaka airport.
The plane landed at Istanbul’s old Ataturk airport and parked near another plane bound for Beirut.
The court found that MNG Jet’s Kosemen then disembarked the Osaka plane and boarded the one destined for Beirut together with Ghosn.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
