Nearly 8 months before Narendra Modi took oath as India's Prime Minister for the first time on May 26, 2014, a court in Italy passed a judgement convicting four people, including a high profile CEO, a chairman of an Italian defence company and two middlemen, in the biggest bribery scandals linked to India. But the entire statements of the accused, the full text of the appeals and the final judgement of the court that could send tremors in India's political and bureaucratic establishment, were never made public by the then Italian government under India's pressure in 2013. It is these classified documents that can reveal the complete trail and the names of India's leading political family and middlemen, who received kick-backs worth more than Rs 600 crores in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam. The fact that the bribe was received in India is established beyond doubt since the Italian court has convicted the bribe givers and names of those who received the kick-back money in India are sealed in the Italian court documents. Investigations and prosecution in the VVIP chopper scam of the Congress led UPA era may pick up pace post PM Modi's return from his recent trip to Italy, highly placed sources told Businessworld.
As per the sources, Italy had shared their court's detailed judgement (225 pages) and related trail of documents (the clinching evidence) of the bribery scandal with PM or his confidants, which can nail high profile politicians and middlemen in India. It is therefore, the sources say, that PM Modi's happiness knew no bounds, which was reflected in his speech in Italy, where he said: "I have never been so happy."
The bribery scandal first came to light in February 2013 with the arrest of Bruno Spagnolini, the CEO of chopper manufacturer AgustaWestland and Guiseppe Orsi, the chairman of Agusta's Italian parent company Finmeccanica. Both along with two middlemen Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa were convicted by the Milan Court of Appeals (equivalent to India's High Court) on charges of international corruption, bribery and money laundering to secure a chopper deal with the Indian Air Force (IAF).
Hidden Names Who Got Kick-backs In India
The Italian court judgement exposes the role of one of India's former Prime Minister and head of India's leading political family. The 225 page judgement reveals the full trail of the bribery scandal and has the hand written notes as evidence. Orsi and others have confessed as to how they paid bribes to Indian politicians and lobbied hard for the deal. Among others, the judgement cites evidence against the general secretary of a leading political party and India's former National Security Advisor. The name of one of India's big politicians and head of a political family is mentioned 4 times, 2 times each on page 193 and 204 of the Italian court judgement, sources said.
As per the documents, Guido Haschke, one of the four convicted middlemen engaged by AgustaWestland, had identified India's big politicians, functionaries of a political party and bureaucrats, to whom the kick-backs were paid, when their photos were shown to him by the prosecutors in Italy.
Also, the sources say that page 9 of the judgement of the Italian court has affixed the handwritten note of a middleman Christian Michel James (a British national in India's custody) to Haschke on how to distribute the total commission of 30 Million Euros of the kick-back money in India. The notes give a detailed split of the bribe money between the bureaucrats of the UPA era including Defense Secretary, DG Acquisition, Joint Secretary of the Defense Ministry among others. Air Force officials were paid 6 Million Euros and Bureaucrats were paid 8.4 million Euros, the Italian court judgement reveals.
In December 2016, India's former Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi and his cousin Sanjeev Tyagi were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) for receiving bribes to approve the chopper deal during the UPA era. Tyagi played a role in recommending the reduction in operational ceiling of the helicopters to be purchased by India from 6000 m to 4500 m, which brought AgustaWestland in the race.
Documents quoted in the judgement say that around 14 to 16 Million Euros were paid to Indian politicians including a political secretary with initials 'AP.' Page no. 163 and 164 of the judgement named India's former Prime Minister and detailed how Orsi lobbied with him for the deal. On page 163, the judgement of the Italian court has affixed a note from Orsi, who from jail was lobbying with the then Italian bureaucrats and Prime Minister Mario Monti and Ambassador Pasquale Terracciano to call the then Indian PM.
Since all this happened in Italy in 2013, prior to Modi becoming PM, the previous government here had pressured and lobbied with the Italian government to bury the skeletons of India's biggest defence scandal after Bofors, the sources say. These skeletons will now come back to life.
And The Trail Reaches...
In April 2019, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had named Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's close confidant and long time political secretary Ahmed Patel (AP) in the AgustaWestland chargesheet. Just a day after the chargesheet, PM Modi while addressing an election rally in Dehradun, Uttrakhand had accused the Congress leaders of being involved in the multi-crore VVIP chopper scam.
"Helicopter ghotale ke dalaalon ne jin logon ko ghoos dene ki baat kahi hai usmein ek 'AP' hai, dusra 'Fam' hai. Issi chargesheet mein kaha gaya hai ki 'AP' ka matlab hai 'Ahmed Patel' aur 'Fam' ka matlab hai 'family.' (The middleman involved in the helicopter scam has said that those involved in giving bribes include one with the name 'AP' and the other is called 'Fam'. The same charge sheet reveals that 'AP' stands for 'Ahmed Patel' and 'Fam' for 'Family')," PM Modi had said in his speech.
The documents containing abbreviations "AP" and "FAM" were recovered by the Swiss police and corroborated by the Italian court during the trial of Bruno Spagnolini, Guiseppe Orsi and middlemen Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa.
In 2018, India had managed to extradite a middleman in the chopper deal, Christian Michel James from Dubai along with his partner Rajiv Saxena, whose company had paid the multi-million Euro kick-backs to the Indian politicians. But Michel has been refusing to take names and the case cannot progress without the "clinching evidence" that was hidden in the documents in Italy. However, with Italy now having shared the vital documents, the investigations and prosecution in the VVIP chopper scam can progress in India, the sources said.
In July 2014, the ED had registered a case under Prevention of Money Laundering for alleged payment of kickbacks by AgustaWestland to the tune of 70 Million Euros. This was allegedly laundered by two chains of fund transfers: one headed by Christian Michel James and the other by Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa, the middlemen engaged by AgustaWestland. Out of the 30 Million Euros transferred, 12.4 million Euros were deposited in the bank accounts of Interstellar Technologies Ltd in Mauritius belonging to Rajiv Saxena, Michel's partner and paid as kick-backs in India. A CBI affidavit in court said an amount of 30 million Euros was paid/proposed to be paid to officers of IAF, Ministry of Defense, Bureaucrats, Politicians and (a) family in India. But the entire trail and the story of these payments remained buried in Italy.
