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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

The guy who works for the Turkish aviation company claims that he was threatened with his family being harmed if he doesn't participate in the operation. Considering that he is in jail for his participation, it is fair to assume that he is not one of the well-paid-identity-protected people in the operation and he did what he did to protect his family.

I am not very comfortable with glorifying this story, why exactly this guy's life and family is more important than the airline professional's?

Although I would watch the movie about it, this whole ordeal feels wrong as it resembles a story where justice is only for the wealthy and collateral damage to unrelated people's lives is O.K. as if those people are not real humans but NPC that just vanish when you're done with them.

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Is it really glorifying it? The article doesn't exactly make Ghosn sound like a hero to me.

> But as Ghosn’s speech went on, entropy took hold. He jumped rapidly from allegation to allegation at a pace that was difficult to follow even for observers versed in the latest Ghosniana. At one point he committed the No. 1 faux pas for foreigners in Japan, comparing his arrest to the attack on Pearl Harbor. There were flashes of arrogance, with Ghosn describing Nissan as “in the dirt” before he arrived and boasting that “20 books of management were written about me.” He devoted a significant stretch of time to a relatively minor issue—whether his comped use of a room at Versailles for his 2016 wedding celebration constituted a sort of kickback for Renault’s sponsorship of the palace—providing a convoluted explanation that he later summed up with, “If I had thought there had been an ethical problem, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Reportedly the guy is considered a hero in Lebanon. The reactions on the press articles are also very favourable, just not perfectly behind him and raising some eyebrows.

Let's ask this question after the movie comes, even better let's ask the kids of the guy in jail to rate the movie about the tragedy of an imprisoned rich CEO that their father was forced to help and go to jail. Let's hope that the mother has a decent income so that they can afford the ticket to the movie.

If his family was threatened why is he still in jail? Did the judge not believe him? Or was it simply that you are always imprisoned in that country regardless of mitigating circumstances.

Because, unlike Ghosn, the guy will face trail since you don't go free by simply saying that you did what you did because someone made you. He obviously committed a crime, now it will take time to receive a ruling and a sentence(which hopefully will be a fair one, based on his claims and the findings of the prosecutor).

He will probably lose his job, his family will go through an ordeal and possibly poverty until the case closes.

Or maybe he willingly participated and took some serious money, who knows? Unlike with Ghosn, his incident would be put on trial.

Regarding the Versailles part, this is not a minor issue for his public image in France and I can see him trying to restore his image first here where it's the most damaged (a huge part of the opinion think he's guilty): that's the event that really swayed the public opinion to him being used to unreported compensation/kickbacks/misappropriation of corporate assets, and totally capable of doing the same thing with Nissan.

For many japaneses, the attack on Pearl Harbor is the mistake where they have lost the war. The Japanese army is essentially a navy. Sailors play chess, but not go. Therefore, they are very strong to win great battles, but lack the global vision to win a war.

What.

I am a go player and as such, I have met many japanese people living in France. The story about Pearl Harbour was from an old president of the association of Japanese nationals in France.

What's a better world, one where some people has the means to defend themselves against injustice, or one where nobody does but at least we're all equal?

He broke the law a bunch of times and then threatened a man's family to force him to comply, and got the man locked up. This isn't fighting injustice, it's causing injustice.

"He broke the law a bunch of times"

Kowing if he did that is dependent on there being a court decision.

Look, I don't like that some probably innocent plane guy is in jail more than anyone else but judging people just because they are rich is also wrong.

Also I'm pretty sure it wasn't Gosn that threatened him but rather the security guy that put together the plan.

>Also I'm pretty sure it wasn't Ghosn that threatened him but rather the security guy that put together the plan.

Is this the reverse of "I just followed orders"? Can the cartel bosses in Mexico not being guilty of the actions of their security guys? Maybe all they wanted was to do a trade but these pesky security guys keep killing people brutally.

Depends on what the order was. If he said "threaten and kill anyone that gets in the way" then yes Ghosn is guilty. If the order was "get me out of the country without harming anyone" then the security guy was guilty. At this point we don't know which it was.

How do you explain his decision to enter Lebanon openly, exposing his plane, therefore exposing the route and the people involved when not exposing the people who organised all this? Why he did not enter Lebanon in the same box he left Japan?

I am pretty sure that Ghosn is intelligent enough to know that as soon as he exposes his route of escape, the people involved in the operation will be exposed. He chooses to expose these when protecting the people he paid.

Was Carlos assuming that the security contractor works for the money and likes being not in jail just like him but airline personnel would do illegal things as part of the rent contract and not having problems with being exposed?

My point is - is it possible that he is directly responsible for the airplane guy going to prison? Possibly, but we don't know.

Presumption of innocence is important.

Example: there's a locally well known actor where I live that was accused of having child porn on his computer a few months ago. The press obviously jumped all over that and he was plastered over all the front pages. Fast forward two months and it's actually looking like he isn't actually guilty and won't be dragged into court. The result for him however is that he's broke, got no more acting gigs and his kids are bullied in school.

Bad result. Because people didn't assume he's innocent until PROVEN guilty. I'd be 100% happy to trade off some exec that steals money from a company getting to skip jail for nobody who's innocent ever ending up in jail.

This is not a court of law, the public opinion is formed from the info available to us and we form our opinions based on our understanding. This is O.K. because we do not put people in prison.

For example, it was O.K. to think that Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos a fraud and express this opinion well before the court decided that.

Therefore I think this is not a glorious story of an innocent CEO persecuted by the baddies, I laid out my reasons for that. You are free to think otherwise but if you want to participate in the discussion you are expected to build up your position and defend it. "Let's wait for the court decision" is not a good argument, especially when a subject is a person who runs from a court decision.

"For example, it was O.K. to think that Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos a fraud and express this opinion well before the court decided that."

That's the part I don't agree with. I don't think it's fair.

It's also unlikely that I'll be able to change your mind on this matter or that you'll be able to change mine during the course of a few comments on HN, so we can agree to disagree :)

> the people involved in the operation will be exposed. He chooses to expose these when protecting the people he paid.

He didn't, these facts are the result of an investigation

Obviously, if you use a registered plane and expose that plane by entering a country with your own identity you are choosing to expose people associated with the plane. If he attempted to conceal his method of transportation, for example entering Lebanon the way he exited Japan, then we would have had a case to argue that he did not choose to expose the people who helped him.

If you insist, we can rephrase it as "He didn't try to hide the identities of the logistic personnel as he hid the people who organised the operation".

It is a very strong clue that they were not from the same team, in sense of willingness and contract.

> if you use a registered plane

What is an "unregistered plane"? Not even the US military has that (except maybe for very specific experimental aircraft and even then).

> for example entering Lebanon the way he exited Japan

That's the reason for the stopover in Turkey. Anything else is spy movie territory.

He left Japan while the decision about his guilt was pending. He chose to work in Japan, so he has to play by the same rules as the rest of us here. It’s a law and order country. If the prosecutor wants you, you’re in big trouble. To be honest, if he was Japanese, he most likely would have killed himself or at least accepted that his life is over due to the shaming. That’s how it’s done here. If you don’t like it, don’t play in this stadium.

Him leaving Japan is undoubtedly illegal and not excusable. However if I understand the allegations correctly, he stole a bunch of money from a company he was running. Putting him to jail for 10 years for stealing $5m from a company that he just made $4bn for seems a bit harsh. Then again, Japan has the right to decide that so my opinion is irrelevant.

In Japan, stealing even a small amount is treated harshly. Recently, I recall that a member of Abe’s cabinet lost his political career because his staff mis-allocated a few hundred dollars worth of lunch receipts, which were erroneously charged to public accounts. Some people see it as disproportionate, but remember that you are expected to be even harsher in judging yourself in these situations. There’s a whole secondary wave of shame if you don’t one-up the required penalty voluntarily.

Nobody is judging him because he's rich. We're judging him for threatening and getting a guy sent to jail.

That's not a choice we are faced with, though, is it?

You're right, of course. We're actually faced with a choice between a world where some can defend themselves against injustice, and a world where some can defend themselves against injustice and also I write thinkpieces about how horrible that is on the internet.

It looks like I am going to choose the former, just so you know.

"The guy who works for the Turkish aviation company claims that he was threatened with his family being harmed"

That would be my excuse also if I got caught.

Why he would be caught when the others are not? The guy was not caught in a police chase, they simply looked at the records to see who is involved.

If he was getting his fair share of the money and protection he would have been boarding the plane with the rest of the team as it is obvious that the authorities would be coming after him.

Why they are coming after him? Because Ghosn entered Lebanon legally, exposing the plane he came in, thus compromising everyone in the logistics of the operation while protecting the reportedly well-paid organizers.

This Ghosn guy looks like the kind of a car company CEO that would crunch the number and decide not to do a recall of the fatally faulty cars if the legal fees are less than the cost of a recall.

And if your family were actually threatened, what would be your excuse?

I think the point is, his statement that his family was threatened provides essentially no information at all, since many people would say that even if it were not true.

So we are supposed to assume that the CEO fled injustice, him an all the reportedly very well-paid conspirators are heroes but this one guy who did the leg work is lying.

If he was one of the conspirators, why he is not together with the rest of the team? AFAIK there was no police chase, Ghosn simply did not protect the identities of the people involved in the logistics by entering Lebanon openly instead of using the box.

If his family was not threatened, why he did it then? Why Carlos did not even try to protect his identity, why the guy did not run with the rest of the team and enjoy his millions somewhere nice?

The police arrested him based on the facts they have. I assume there will still be a trial and he can argument that his family was threatened, but from what we know, there's not that much evidence for that.

The exact same thing could have been said for Ghosn.

But hey, He is special so it is O.K. for him not to face trial and land other people in jail in the process and those people should face a trial. Right?

No. You seem to falsely assume that nobody has empathy for the guy who was arrested. I personally think that it was alright for Ghosn to flee, because the Japanese "justice" system is inherently unjust. It does not fulfill the basic requirements for due process, and that is also the reason why e.g. France has already stated they would not extradite him if he came to France. At the same time it is very regrettable that someone in Turkey was arrested for helping him. I also think that the claim that his family was threatened is not very credible and likely a protection assertion.

I'd be surprised if Ghosn thought about this in any other way. People tend to assert all kinds of evilness to wealthy top managers when in the end most of them are just ordinary people who made the right career choices at the right time.

Okay, so he was faced with a choice between being in jail and putting someone unrelated in jail, he chooses to put someone in jail and he is not evil?

If anything, it seems like he chose to save some money by not paying off the logistics team and prefered some comfort by not entering Lebanon openly instead of in a box, exposing the logistics team.

I think you wrongly assume that he is vilified due to him being rich. Non-CEO people who cause harm to others, forcing people to do things "or else" are also vilified. Rich or not, guilty or not, it is not O.K. to harm people for your own wellbeing.

If he was ill, should he also be allowed to harvest organs from living and unwilling people because otherwise, he will die?

he wasn't faced with that choice at all.

>Okay, so he was faced with a choice between being in jail and putting someone unrelated in jail, he chooses to put someone in jail and he is not evil?

I'm pretty sure you know that this probably isn't what happened here.

No. He did successfully fled, however. The police didn't manage to catch him in time.

> So we are supposed to assume that the CEO fled injustice, him an all the reportedly very well-paid conspirators are heroes but this one guy who did the leg work is lying.

Who's saying that? The CEO looks guilty to me, but I don't know the details of the case.

Why assume he wasn't paid? I find it hard to believe that such a well-organised plan would hinge on being able to browbeat a lowly employee instead of rewarding him handsomely. A $15m operation could spare, say, a hundred thousand (a small fortune in Turkey).

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