Ghosn ill, arrested illegally, lawyers claim

Former Renault-Nissan Alliance kingpin Carlos Ghosn has had kidney-disease treatment interrupted by his illegal re-arrest this week, his lawyers have argued in Japan.

In undisclosed documents seen by Reuters, his lawyers wrote that Ghosn was undergoing treatment for kidney failure related to a failed cholesterol treatment, and insisted his re-arrest was a plot to interrupt his defence preparations.

Ghosn was arrested for the fourth time by Japanese prosecutors despite winning a release on bail last month after more than three months in solitary detention over allegations that he misused Nissan funds for his personal gain.

Ghosn had been staying in an approved Tokyo residence on a $US9 million bail, but his lawyers insist the re-arrest is designed purely to force a confession from the man who rescued Nissan nearly 20 years ago.

For his part, the French-Brazilian-Lebanese Ghosn has insisted all allegations against him stem from a boardroom coup, designed to stop Renault and Nissan from moving from the current alliance to a formal merger.

“This arrest is illegal,” Ghosn’s defence team said.

Ghosn’s treatment for high cholesterol has given him chronic kidney failure and rhabdomyolysis (where muscle fibres leak into the bloodstream), the defence insisted.

Ghosn’s wife, Carole, also said prosecutors would not let her contact the former Renault chairman’s lawyers at the time of his re-arrest.

According to the document, Mrs Ghosn said she was subjected to physical body checks and that female investigators insisted on being present whenever she went to the bathroom or had a shower.

"I felt that they were humiliating and coercing me with these inhuman actions," she said in her statement.

The re-arrest comes just days after Ghosn set up a Twitter account, promising to tell the truth and name names about the plot behind his arrest, then released a video attacking Nissan’s management.

Calling the management “backstabbing” and “selfish”, he called Nissan’s current status “sickening” and that he was worried about the lack of vision for the company.

Ghosn’s last official role with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, that of Nissan board member, was terminated last week.

"This is not about greed. This is not about dictatorship. This is about a plot. This is about conspiracy. This is about backstabbing," Ghosn said in the video.

"There was first a fear that the next step of the alliance, in terms of convergence and in terms of moving toward a merger, would, in a certain way, threaten some people or eventually threaten the autonomy of Nissan.

"Frankly, sitting down there on the table, being consensual about decision, this is not a vision in an industry which is as competitive as the car industry.

"You need to make sure that from time to time, leadership is exercised. And leadership means we do what's good for the company, not what you are capable to agree on. This is not dictatorship. This is leadership."

But he also decried Nissan’s business health, suggesting strongly that it was sliding back to mid-field thinking or worse.

"I'm worried because obviously the performance of Nissan is declining," he said. "But also, I'm worried because I don't think there is any vision for the alliance being built."

He called Nissan’s performance as “absolutely mediocre”, suggesting its Japanese management had “railroaded” him to shift the blame, and said there had been three profit warnings and “many scandals” in recent years.

"I'm talking here about the few executives who, obviously, for their own interest and for their own selfish fears are creating a lot of value destruction. Names? You know them," Ghosn said.

"I'm talking about people who really played a very dirty game."

For its part, Nissan responded to the video by insisting any blame for Ghosn’s predicament lay with the man himself.

"Aside from any criminal matters, Nissan's internal investigation has uncovered substantial evidence of blatantly unethical conduct," Nissan said in a statement.

"Further discoveries related to Ghosn's misconduct continue to emerge. The company's focus remains on addressing weaknesses in governance that failed to prevent this misconduct."