A US appeals court on Thursday refused to stop the extradition of two men wanted by Japan on charges that they helped smuggle former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn into a box in 2019.
The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an urgent request to stop the extradition of Michael and Peter Taylor to give them time to challenge a lower court ruling.
Taylor’s lawyers say the US government could surrender the men to Japan as early as Friday.
In a brief statement, the 1st Circuit said the Taylors have not shown that they are likely to succeed based on the merits of their cause.
An American appeals court on Thursday refused to suspend the extradition of Michael (pictured) and his son Peter Taylor, who are wanted by Japan, on charges that they helped smuggle former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn into a box. 2019.
Taylor, a former Massachusetts green beret, and his son are wanted by Japan so they can be brought to trial on allegations that they helped Ghosn’s (pictured) daring escape from the country while he was out on bail and awaiting his lawsuit for accusation of financial misconduct.
An email requesting comment was sent to an attorney for the Taylors. Taylor’s lawyers say the men cannot be extradited because bail jumping is not a crime in Japan, and therefore helping someone bypass bail is not a crime.
Their lawyers believe the men will be subjected to “mental and physical torture” in Japan, describing the criminal justice system as “comparable to that of an authoritarian regime.”
Michael Taylor, a former Green Beret and private Massachusetts security specialist, and his son are wanted by Japan so they can be brought to trial on allegations that they helped Ghosn in his daring escape from the country while on bail and in was awaiting trial for financial misconduct. cost.
The elder Taylor is said to have paid $ 1.3 million to help put Ghosn in a box and transport him from Japan.
Michael Taylor said in an interview with The Associated Press this month that he fears they will be treated unfairly in the Japanese legal system and feels betrayed that the US would try to extradite him to Japan after his service to the country.
“You spend your time in the military and you serve in combat and you do a lot of other things,” Michael Taylor said.
And now they volunteer to extradite me and my son to Japan for something like this? Yes, you feel a great sense of betrayal. ‘
The Taylors’ defense team had lobbied Trump’s White House to intervene.
The father and son hired two powerful attorneys with ties to former President Donald Trump – Abbe Lowell, who has represented Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House attorney – in the hope that the case would grab Trump’s attention before he left office.
Taylor had hoped President Joe Biden’s administration would reconsider the matter, but the White House has not commented.
“My father is now in his mid-80s. We go there and we are tortured. I will not be here during my father’s last days, which of course I would like to be. His grandson would like to be too, ”said Michael Taylor. “Don’t you think we’ve been punished enough already?”
This week, the US Department of Justice called the claims in the Taylors’ attempt to block extradition “ unprecedented and worthless’ ‘and noted that they had already been rejected by other judges.
A security camera video image shows Taylor, center, and George-Antoine Zayek at passport control at Istanbul Airport in Turkey
These are the cases for metal instruments allegedly used during Ghosn’s escape from Japan to Lebanon via Turkey
This image shows details of how the escape took place in 2019
A DOJ spokesperson said anyone extradited to Japan to be tried for alleged crimes committed there will be “ given all the legal process and other rights typically available to all suspects who are criminally charged in Japan. ”
The United States Department of State agreed to hand the couple over to Japan in October, but a federal court judge in Boston halted the extradition after their lawyers filed an urgent request.
The judge rejected the petition last week, paving the way for extradition before the lawyers appealed to the 1st Circuit.
Taylor has declined to discuss the details of the case due to the possibility that he will be tried in Japan. But he insisted that his son was “not involved” and was not in Japan when Ghosn left.
Prosecutors have described it as one of the “ boldest and well-orchestrated breakouts in recent memory. ”
Ghosn transferred more than $ 860,000 to a company linked to Peter Taylor shortly before the escape, and Ghosn’s son later made $ 500,000 in cryptocurrency payments, authorities said.
On the day of the escape, Michael Taylor flew a chartered jet to Osaka with another man, George-Antoine Zayek, with two large black boxes in hand, posing as musicians with audio equipment, authorities said.
Ghosn escaped while awaiting trial on charges that he had under-given his future income and broken trust by diverting Nissan Motor money for his personal gain.
Taylor (right) has declined to discuss the details of the case due to the possibility that he will be tried in Japan. But he insisted that his son (left) was ‘not involved’ and was not in Japan when Ghosn left
Taylor (right) and his son (left when he was much younger) were arrested in May for their alleged involvement in Ghosn’s escape in December 2019 and are being held in a Massachusetts prison.
He went to the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo and met Peter Taylor, who was already in Japan, authorities say.
The elder Taylor and Zayek met the two others at the Grand Hyatt and soon after they broke up.
Peter Taylor hopped on a flight to China while the others boarded a high-speed train and headed back to another hotel near the airport, where Taylor and Zayek had booked a room. They all went in; only Ghosn’s rescuers were seen walking out.
Authorities say Ghosn was in one of the big black boxes. At the airport, the boxes passed a security checkpoint without being checked and were loaded onto a private jet bound for Turkey, officials said.
Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades and saved it from near bankruptcy, denies any wrongdoing.
He said he had fled because he could not expect a fair trial, had been subjected to unfair conditions while in detention and that he was not allowed to meet his wife under his bail conditions.
He is now in Lebanon, where he has citizenship but does not have an extradition treaty with Japan.
Over the years, the older Taylor has been hired by parents to rescue kidnapped children, went undercover for the FBI in a sting on a Massachusetts drug gang, and worked as a contractor for the United States military in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this is not the first time he has run into legal trouble.
In 2012, federal prosecutors alleged that Taylor won a US military contract to train Afghan soldiers using classified information passed on from a US officer.
When Taylor learned that the contract was under investigation, he asked an FBI agent and a friend to intervene. Taylor served 14 months in prison before agreeing to plead guilty to two cases.