FORMER Nissan executive Greg Kelly has been given a six-month suspended sentence by a Tokyo court for his role in helping former boss Carlos Ghosn allegedly hide more than $US80 million ($A110m) in deferred compensation.

But after a trial lasting a year chief judge Kenji Shimotsu cleared him of the bulk of the allegations.

After more than three years of prosecution, Mr Kelly was given the suspended sentence and has returned home to Tennessee.

Mr Ghosn, reported speaking from Lebanon where he is in exile, said Mr Kelly – who was arrested while on a November 2018 business trip to Japan – was “an innocent man”.

Prosecutors, who sought two years in prison, said it was regrettable that the court did not accept most of their allegations against Mr Kelly and indicated they might consider an appeal.

The court upheld the notion that Mr Ghosn conspired to hide deferred compensation from regulators and investors over the period, saying the actions undermined Japan’s disclosure system.

Mr Shimotsu rejected most of the counts against Mr Kelly, saying that a key witness linking Mr Kelly to the alleged postponed compensation was not reliable.

This was partly because the witness, a Nissan manager, had taken a plea bargain with prosecutors to avoid prosecution.

“There is considerable room for him to make statements that conform to the prosecutors’ wishes,” Mr Shimotsu said of the witness, calling his testimony “not credible”.

The judge also fined Nissan Motor Company, as a corporate entity, ¥200 million ($US1.73 million) for its responsibility in filing falsified securities reports that failed to account for Ghosn’s full remuneration.

Mr Shimotsu said Nissan bore heavy responsibility for fostering a dysfunctional corporate governance system that allowed Ghosn to get away with financial misconduct.

The decision, read out in Tokyo District Court last Thursday, has been described as “a lightning rod of corporate and diplomatic manoeuvring” that has placed corporate Japan in a poor light.

In a video call from Lebanon, Mr Ghosn said after the verdict that he was relieved for Mr Kelly and his family:

“I pray that he will be able to overcome this huge emotional, psychological, financial impact inflicted on him by the hostage justice system of Japan,” he said.

“He’s obviously an innocent man,”,

By Neil Dowling