A prediction: L'affaire Carlos Ghosn is not going to end well for the Japanese. Yes, that's right: I'm convinced that Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan Motor Co. who was arrested Nov. 19 on suspicion of underreporting his compensation, is going to come out of this looking a lot better than either the Japanese prosecutors who arrested him or the Japanese automaker that so plainly turned on him.
Let's start with the prosecutors. Seventeen days after his arrest, Ghosn remains confined to a small cell. Prosecutors interrogate for hours at a time, urging him to confess his crimes. Occasionally, his Japanese lawyer is allowed a short visit, as are diplomats from France and Lebanon, where Ghosn has citizenship. But his American lawyers have no access to him, nor does his family. He has asked for additional food, as well as a blanket. It is unknown whether those wishes have been granted.
As has been well-documented since Ghosn's arrest, his treatment would not be unusual in Japan. Under the country's criminal justice system, prosecutors can detain a suspect for up to 23 days before charging him, letting him go or detaining him again on a different allegation. Ghosn will hit the 23-day mark on Dec. 12, but the Japanese newspaper Sankei reported Monday that the prosecutors plan to accuse him of a second crime so they can start the clock again. Meaning that Ghosn will very likely remain in prison until at least early 2019.