The sorrows of the Taylors, father and son

The saddest part of Japan's mad vendetta against Carlos Ghosn is that Michael and Peter Taylor, the two adventurers who spirited the former Renault-Nissan chairman out of his confinement in Tokyo, are now themselves behind bars. They're being held in a bleak county jail near Boston. The elder Mr Taylor was awakened one morning in May, went to the door in his underwear, and found himself confronted by a dozen armed federal agents. (He had a ticket for that day's flight to Lebanon, which has no extradition treaty with Japan. Too bad he didn't make it!) "I thought I was dreaming," he later said. "I thought I was in Baghdad."

Mr Taylor's confusion is understandable. The whole affair has a third-world quality. Shame on Japan for trying to hold Mr Ghosn in perpetual confinement, and shame on the United States for abetting Japan's pursuit of the men who snatched him from durance indefinite.

A fourth man, Mark Kelley, is still mired in Japan's byzantine criminal justice system. Tricked into returning to the country when Mr Ghosn was arrested two years ago, he's defending himself in a trial not expected to end until some time next year. This was the foreigners' reward for turning the near-bankrupt Nissan around and making it more successful than the French company that rescued it.