French magistrates heard a witness in the Carlos Ghosn case in Beirut Monday

BEIRUT – French magistrates heard a witness in Beirut on Monday in the context of an investigation conducted in Nanterre, targeting the former boss of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Carlos Ghosn.

Here’s what we know:

The French magistrates heard during a hearing held in a room of the Court of Cassation at the Justice Palace one of the witnesses in the case, in the presence of Imad Kabalan, public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, and Judge Mirna Kallas, a judicial source told AFP.

The former automobile tycoon is targeted in France by two legal proceedings: in Paris, for the consulting services concluded by RNBV, a Dutch subsidiary embodying the Renault-Nissan Alliance, with the former French Minister of Justice Rachida Dati and criminologist Alain Bauer; and in Nanterre, in particular for alleged misuse of corporate assets and money laundering.

The French delegation, which arrived in Beirut on Sunday evening and will remain until Thursday, will hear another witness on Tuesday, the source said, without naming the witnesses.

French judges are working to “gather information to determine whether Mr. Ghosn's [financial] transfers involve embezzlement of funds from company accounts and cases of corruption,” added the source.

Carlos Ghosn defended himself recently, telling  the Parisien newspaper that “they have not found a single financial flow from Renault or Nissan that incriminates me.”

According to a French source close to the case, AFP reported, the judicial system in France can also ask the Lebanese prosecutor to issue a “notification of the charges” to Ghosn — the equivalent of an indictment in France — or even demand an arrest warrant against him.

France is trying to “build a file and gather evidence to be able to prosecute Mr. Ghosn, for the time being non-existent,” said the Lebanese source.

Ghosn fled Japan in December 2019 after being arrested in Tokyo a year prior, and since then has been forced to stay in Lebanon. Aged 67 and targeted by an arrest warrant from Interpol, the former businessman, who has Lebanese, French and Brazilian nationalities, justified his escape by claiming to have “[escaped] injustice.”