In Carlos Ghosn’s first press conference after fleeing Japan for Lebanon, he pointed the figure squarely at other Nissan executives for orchestrating his downfall while saying that all allegations against him for financial misconduct are untrue.

At a time when Japan’s second largest automaker was looking to merge with Renault or even potentially merging with Fiat Chrysler (FCA), Nissan executives cooked up a plot to bring him down. Quoting Ghosn from his press conference:

“Who was part of the plot? Obviously, (Hiroto) Saikawa was part of the plot, Hari Nada is part of the plot, and (Toshiaki) Onuma because they showed. But there are many other people. (Masakazu) Toyoda, a member of the board, was the link between the board of Nissan and the authorities.”

Ghosn asserts that he was working to integrate Renault and Nissan while respecting the autonomy of both. However, he says there was mistrust among his Japanese counterparts.

“Some of my Japanese friends thought that the only way to get rid of the influence of Renault on Nissan, was to get rid of me.”

Furthermore, Ghosn says that one reason Nissan executives plotted against him was because the Japanese automaker’s performance started to decline at the beginning of 2017. However, at the time, he no longer had a hands-on role there since he concentrated in bringing Mitsubishi on board the alliance which happened in October 2016.