Ghosn left his home alone, security camera footage shows

Security camera footage shows former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn walking out of his Tokyo home alone around noon Sunday, hours before he fled the country in a private jet, Japanese state broadcaster said on Friday, citing investigative sources.

The footage is one more piece of the jigsaw puzzle as authorities try to figure out how Ghosn jumped $14 million bail, fled the country and escaped to Lebanon to evade charges of financial misconduct and a potential jail term of up to 15 years.

Ghosn’s escape has been a major embarrassment for Japan, with one outspoken politician saying the country had become a laughingstock.

Although surveillance cameras were installed outside Ghosn’s home as part of his bail conditions, he was free to come and go as he pleased and would regularly visit his lawyer’s office to discuss his defense, his lawyers say.

The surveillance footage was not monitored in real-time, and recordings were handed over to authorities only in the middle of every month, according to the website of one of his lawyers, Takashi Takano.

Records of his meetings, of his mobile phone calls and of his Internet use at a computer in his lawyer’s office were also submitted on a monthly basis.

The bail conditions were designed to keep him from tampering with evidence and fleeing the country and were not meant to keep him under house arrest, lawyers say, and Ghosn and his family even visited Kyoto late last year.

Nevertheless, legal experts have already called for Japan to use GPS-monitoring for suspects released on bail, a practice common in the United States but not in Japan.