The four pilots were believed to have traveled on the private jet that brought Ghosn from Japan on his way to Beirut. Two employees of a private ground handling company and the operations manager of a private cargo company were also detained.

Turkey has close relations with Japan, while Japanese businesses are significant investors in the country, meaning that Ankara may have been keen to help the Japanese government figure out how Ghosn made it halfway across the world to Lebanon.

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Anadolu said Ghosn left Osaka on Sunday at 11 p.m. and flew to Istanbul's Ataturk airport. The flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed that a Bombardier Global Express jet left Osaka's Kansai airport at 11:15 p.m. and arrived in Istanbul at 5:15 a.m. Monday. A separate plane, a Bombardier Challenger 300, took off from Istanbul to Beirut at 6:02 am.

The Hurriyet news website, citing an Interior Ministry official, said Turkish border police were not notified about Ghosn's arrival and that neither his entry nor exit were registered. A police spokeswoman told Reuters that all seven people would give statements before a court Thursday.



Meanwhile, Japanese prosecutors raided Ghosn's now-vacated house in Tokyo on Thursday, as they sought clues to how he evaded their surveillance, slipped out of the country and arrived in Lebanon.

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Ghosn will give answers at a news conference in Beirut on Wednesday, said Ricardo Karam, a television host and close friend. But for the time being, the mystery has gripped the people of Japan and both baffled and embarrassed their government.

On Thursday, a possible answer emerged to one of the questions surrounding his dramatic escape: How could he have entered Lebanon on his French passport — as the Lebanese government insists he did — when his Japanese lawyer says he held the businessman’s French, Brazilian and Lebanese passports?

Japanese state broadcaster NHK reported that Ghosn was issued two French passports, the second of which was kept in a locked case at his house.

NHK quoted unnamed sources as saying that both passports were initially kept by his lawyers but that Ghosn convinced the court in May that he needed to carry one with him. The document was then kept at his house, with his lawyers holding the keys to the box.

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Japanese law stipulates that foreign tourists need to carry their passports with them, although foreign residents on long-term visas need only to carry residence cards.

Lawyer Junichiro Hironaka, who had earlier claimed that Ghosn’s legal team had all his passports, told NHK that the existence of an extra passport at the businessman’s house had “slipped my mind.” He explained that he was not personally in charge of handling the travel documents.

But there were no immediate answers as to how Ghosn had slipped past the surveillance cameras at his house, or past immigration authorities at Osaka’s busy Kansai airport to board a private jet. Did he evade immigration checks, or travel on a false passport with a record of having entered the country?

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Japan’s immigration authorities’ database shows no record of Ghosn leaving the country, according to local media, and police are now investigating him for a possible violation of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. A Tokyo court has already rescinded his record $14 million bail, and police also intend to review security camera footage from around his house, NHK reported.

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Ghosn’s wife, Carole, dismissed as “fiction” a Lebanese media report that Ghosn was smuggled out of his house in a box designed for musical instruments, Reuters news agency reported.

Some media reports had suggested his wife had helped him escape, but Ghosn denied that was the case. “All such speculation is inaccurate and false,” he said in a statement. “I alone arranged for my departure. My family had no role whatsoever.”

Under the terms of Ghosn’s bail, security cameras were installed outside his house, he was denied access to email and the Internet, and he was even forbidden for months to talk to his wife.

Reuters, citing two sources close to Ghosn, reported that he sneaked out of his home with the help of a private security company and traveled on a private jet to Istanbul and then on to Beirut, with even the pilot unaware of his presence on board.

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“It was a very professional operation from start to finish,” one of them was quoted as saying.

The sources told Reuters that Ghosn met with Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Monday and was greeted warmly by him, but an official in the president’s office, who was not authorized to give his name, denied that such a meeting took place.

Ghosn has considerable support among Lebanon’s political and business elite, although whether he enjoys the same level of sympathy among ordinary people is less certain.

Lebanon’s Justice Ministry said Thursday that it has received a wanted notice for Ghosn issued by Interpol, the international police organization. But while Interpol “red notices” alert police about internationally wanted fugitives, there is no compulsion for any country to arrest the subject.

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The French government also received a red notice, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.

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Potentially of more concern for Ghosn was news that two Lebanese lawyers had submitted a report to the Public Prosecutor’s Office accusing him of violating a law that forbids Lebanese nationals from entering Israel — a potentially serious offense.

“We stand in amazement at the silence of the Lebanese political parties, which are considered allies of the resistance against Israel, over such security breaches,” said the statement from lawyers Hassan Bazi and Ali Abbas, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

The Lebanese government says it asked Japan to release the businessman to its custody a year ago and pledged to try him under international anti-corruption regulations. But Beirut says Tokyo never responded to that request, and the prospect of any trial at all now looks remote. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan, as it has already pointed out.

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Ghosn has said he is not a fugitive from justice but was escaping injustice and political persecution.

Independent legal experts contrast the harsh treatment that Ghosn received — a total of more than 120 days’ detention in an unheated cell, hours of interrogation without a lawyer present, charges that carried a maximum sentence of 15 years — with the way Japanese business executives often get away scot-free or with a slap on the wrist for much more serious crimes.

Nevertheless, major questions remain unanswered about Ghosn’s tenure as head of Nissan and Renault, two car companies whose fortunes he turned around and merged into a powerful alliance.

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Ghosn was charged with four counts of financial misconduct and aggravated breach of trust, including by allegedly underreporting his income and enriching himself through payments to dealerships in the Middle East.

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Ghosn and his attorneys say the allegations were trumped up as part of a conspiracy among Nissan, government officials and prosecutors to oust Ghosn and block his plans to force through a closer merger between the Japanese automaker and its alliance partner, Renault.

But Nissan said its investigations revealed misconduct that included understating his salary and transferring $5 million of company funds to an account in which he had an interest.

Renault, initially supportive of its former boss, announced in April after an internal investigation that it had found evidence of “questionable and concealed practices and violations of the group’s ethical principles.”

