Indian ‘arms dealer’ on CBI radar held in UK in bribe case

New Delhi: Alleged arms dealer Sudhir Choudhrie and his son Bhanu were arrested in the UK on Wednesday for their alleged involvement in a bribery scandal involving Rolls-Royce company.

According to preliminary information, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of the UK is investigating allegations that Rolls-Royce, which makes aircraft engines and turbines, paid bribes in China and Indonesia to secure contracts, and that Choudhrie was the intermediary for the payments.

The SFO had on December 23 confirmed that its director had opened a criminal investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption at Rolls-Royce. The investigation took a dramatic turn on Wednesday with the arrest of Choudhrie and his son.

Choudhrie has figured in several major defence scandals in India, and was named in at least two FIRs filed by the CBI, and also in its list of about two dozen “undesirable contact men”, who are suspected of manipulating government contracts. Both the FIRs were closed by the CBI saying it had found no concrete evidence to take forward the case.

Choudhrie’s name has also figured in documents filed by Italian investigators into the VVIP helicopter scandal, in which former IAF chief S P Tyagi and his cousins are among those accused of taking bribes to clear the 2010 deal. In documents before courts, senior Finmeccanica executives have claimed that Choudhrie was their middleman for past arms deals in India, before they brought in new agents.

Choudhrie is also a major donor to the UK Liberal Democrat party, and was until recently among the probables to become a member of UK’s House of Lords.

British media reports said Choudhrie and his son Bhanu were arrested on Wednesday. A spokesman for the Choudhries told local media the duo denied all wrongdoing, and were fully cooperating with the investigation. The father-son duo was granted bail without conditions after being questioned for several hours.

Charges that Rolls-Royce paid bribes first emerged almost a year ago when a former employee of the company raised the allegation.

Choudhrie and his family have been living in Chelsea in London almost permanently since 2006, when he was named in CBI FIRs in India. He has at least one farm house and another independent house in Sunder Nagar in Delhi. Over the years, the Choudhries have built up a sprawling legitimate business in the UK, India and elsewhere.
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Another IAF ex-chief gets dragged into copter mess

Finmeccanica Says It Hosted Major, He Says It Was With Govt Nod
New Delhi: Lawyers for Finmeccanica, the Italian conglomerate in the middle of the VVIP helicopter scandal, said former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major had accepted their company’s hospitality during a trip to Italy in 2007. The claim comes months after the name of another IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, emerged in the scandal.

However, in the case of Major, the lawyers have not gone beyond the claim of providing hospitality at a time when IAF was in the process of selecting a helicopter to fly India’s VVIPs. In response to the claims, Major said he accepted Finmeccanica’s hospitality with the approval of the government and the Indian embassy in Rome.

“It was not for my personal requirement but for the delegation which was visiting the country,” said Major. He said he visited Finmeccanica in 2007 along with other delegation members, and the company hosted him for dinner. The former IAF chief said his programme had been approved by the government and drawn by officials including Indian diplomats in Rome. Major’s name emerged in the courts after former senior vice-president of AgustaWestland, Giacomo Saporano, on Wednesday claimed that Tyagi had accepted the firm’s hospitality in Italy in 2007. During the dates mentioned by Saporano, Major was the IAF chief.

Finmeccanica’s defence lawyers later clarified that Saporano got confused with the names and dates and it was Major who was in Italy on those dates.

Major was at the helm of IAF from April 2007 to May 2009 and Finmeccanica lawyers say Major knew more about technical specifications since he was a helicopter pilot. Most of the selection process for the VVIP helicopters was handled during the period Major was IAF chief. However, his name has not appeared in any of the court filings, or documents that have emerged in Italy and elsewhere during investigations.

Tyagi and his three cousins have been named as accused by the CBI in its ongoing criminal investigation in India. Documents recovered from the accused by Italian investigators allegedly show kickbacks to the Tyagi brothers, and some others.
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Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: India named affected party, may get evidence from Italy

With India being named as an affected party by Italian prosecutors who have moved court for a fast track trial in the VVIP chopper deal kickbacks scandal, the CBI is likely to soon get hold of key evidence that Italian investigators have used to allege that bribes worth 51 million euros were paid to facilitate the contract.

Italian prosecutors, who have been investigating the case since late 2011, moved the court on Tuesday for an immediate trial of former CEO of Finmeccanica Giuseppe Orsi, who has emerged as the key accused in the bribery scandal.

It is learnt that the Indian government has been listed as an affected party in the case by the prosecutors and if the court agrees to this, several thousand pages of crucial evidence could be made available to India, as per Italian law.

The Indian embassy in Rome would be the nodal agency with which the information would be shared. As per Italian law, all affected parties, including the accused, have to be given access to the investigation material before the trial commences.

It is also believed that the fast track trial that has been demanded by the prosecutors, doing away with the need for a preliminary hearing into the case, indicates that a strong case exists against both Orsi and Bruno Spagnolini, who was till recently the CEO of AgustaWestland. Both have been accused of facilitating the generation of bribes in the Rs 3,546-crore deal with India for 12 VVIP helicopters that was inked in 2010.

Once the trial starts in a few days, the information will be made available to all the parties concerned, giving the CBI more evidence to tie up its own case that has been registered in the matter. The CBI has named former Air Chief SP Tyagi among others as key accused in facilitating the contract for AgustaWestland by tweaking technical requirements. The bank accounts of all Indian individuals and companies named in a CBI FIR were recently frozen by investigators.

In its reaction to the development, AgustaWestland said that it is "unable to comment directly on the ongoing investigation" but stressed that "none of the allegations have yet been tested in court".

The company also issued a statement that it has formally sought "bilateral discussions with the Ministry of Defence" on the VVIP chopper deal, saying that such a discussion is a "legal obligation under the contract". The company said that it is yet to get any response.
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Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: Bank accounts of ex-IAF chief Tyagi, others frozen

New Delhi:The CBI has frozen bank accounts of former IAF chief S P Tyagi and other Indians named as accused for allegedly receiving kickbacks in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP helicopter deal. Sources said on Tuesday that “certain bank accounts of all the Indian accused” named in the FIR had been frozen.

Bank accounts of Indian companies named in the alleged scam — Aeromatrix Info Solutions Pvt Ltd and IDS Infotech — have already been frozen by the agency.

Sources said bank accounts of Tyagi’s cousins — Sanjeev alias Julie, Rajeev alias Docsa and Sandeep — were frozen as part of the investigation. Other Indians named in the FIR, whose accounts were frozen, include former Union minister Santosh Bagrodia’s brother Satish Bagrodia, who is also chairman of IDS Infotech, the company’s managing director Pratap Aggarwal, Aeromatrix CEO Praveen Bakshi and legal advisor Gautam Khaitan, sources said.

CBI has booked all the accused under provisions of the IPC relating to cheating and criminal conspiracy and the Prevention of Corruption Act. Tyagi is the first IAF chief to be named in a corruption or criminal case by the CBI.

The agency has alleged that during his tenure as IAF chief, Tyagi, and “with his approval” the IAF, “conceded to reduce the service ceiling for VVIP helicopters from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres”.

“Haschke Guido and Gerosa Carlo (middlemen) managed to send €5.6 million through Mohali-based IDS Infotech and Chandigarh-based Aeromatrix Info Solutions Pvt Ltd to India and kept the remaining amount, out of about €24.30 million received from AgustaWestland, with themselves in the account of IDS Tunisia,” the FIR said.
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Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: What is the AugustaWestland case

AugustaWestland is an Anglo-Italian multinational helicopter design manufacturing comapany and wholly owned by Finmeccania.

The entire scam opened up after the Finmeccania CEO Guiseppe Orsi was arrested by the Italian police as a part of a bribery probe related to the sale of the 12 VIP helicopters to India in 2010.

Orsi was under investigation for the same ever since 2011 when he left Finmeccanica's helicopter unit AgustaWestland in order to become chief executive of the company.

He is accused to have connection with a Rs3,600 crore bribe paid to secure the helicopter contract with India the same year.

2011 was also the time when the Indian government finally woke up to kickstart a probe into the same case, its first step being getting in touch with the Italian government to get a report about the entire scandal. But all was in vain as the Italian authorities refused to cooperate in view of the case being under a judicial probe.

Now, two days after Orsi's arrest, the Indian defence ministry has requested a detailed CBI report into the entire scam.

Defence minister AK Antony has refused comment on the alleged scam until the CBI report is out, even as he has ensured that the guilty will be severely punished.

Antony said he has already blacklisted six companies and would not hesitate "no matter how big the companies are".

Meanwhile, the scam report brought the names of Juli Tyagi, Docsa and Sandeep Tyagi to the forefront linking them as the cousins of former air chief SP Tyagi.

The Italian Investigators name SP Tyagi as a part of a scam and accuse him of tweaking the requirements of the deal. Tyagi has rubbished the charges, stating that the deal was signed in 2010 when he had retired in 2007.

Tyagi however mentioned that he was a part of the deal when it was proposed in 2003, but not after he retired.
Courtesy: 
Published: Wednesday, Feb 13, 2013, 12:50 IST
By Hansika Subramanian | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_what-is-the-augustawestland-case_1799505

Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: Govt ignored BJP leader’s request for probe in Dec

New Delhi: BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar’s letter to defence minister A K Antony seeking a probe into the AgustaWestland chopper deal in December last year had drawn no response while a parliamentary question was also blandly answered.

Almost two months before Antony finally ordered a CBI probe into the chopper deal, Javadekar had pointed to reports that Italian investigations had revealed a €51-million commission paid to a Switzerland-based consultant, Guido Ralph Haschke, to facilitate a deal with India.

Referring to reports in the media, Javadekar said the government did not appear to have begun any formal probe as it was awaiting further information from Italy and UK. “The government by using bilateral relations can seek related information on an urgent basis,” he said.

Stating that names of several Indians had come up in an inquiry report filed in a court in Naples, the MP also referred to taped conversations between Haschke and one Gerosa that he claimed threw light on the nexus to eliminate evidence.

In response to a parliamentary question, Antony had said that it had come to the notice of the ministry of defence through several reports that Italian prosecutors had begun a probe into alleged unethical dealings of Finmeccanica, the parent company of AgustaWestland.

Stating that the ministry of external affairs had taken up the matter with the governments of Italy and UK to access further details, the minister said, “In the absence of any specific information, the government has not started any formal probe in this regard by Indian agencies.”
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Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: Chopper scam foils Cong bid to shed ‘corrupt’ tag

Party Worried As Charges Coincide With Rahul’s RIse
New Delhi: The VVIP helicopter scam threatens to undo the Congress’s efforts to turn the public gaze away from a string of scandals marring UPA’s second term in office by a renewed focus on governance and leadership ahead of the 2014 elections.

Worry lines were back in evidence with allegations of kickbacks from an Italian firm snowballing and the Congress defending the government by relying on defence minister A K Antony’s “Mr Clean” image and the promptness with which a CBI inquiry has been ordered close on the heels of the arrests in Italy.

The Congress’s reactions, betraying a gnawing worry that the scam could be a setback to the sense of purpose generated by the party’s brainstorming at Jaipur last month that saw Rahul Gandhi take charge as vice-president with another sapping corruption debate looming ahead of Parliament’s Budget session.

The sustained civil society and the Opposition campaign on corruption exposes had paralyzed the Manmohan Singh government and extracted a heavy political cost. It is only recently that the PMO has made concerted efforts to break the debilitating policy logjam by resolving inter ministerial battles over clearances and mandates.

Post-Jaipur, there was a bid to junk the “old ways” of denial and inaction with the Congress left with little more than a year to win back voters who might be turning against the party. The ‘Jaipur chintan’ crystallized the agenda to turn the page.

Now, the concern is that the energizing effect of Rahul’s elevation may again lose momentum as the Centre gets ready for another slugfest with the Opposition.

The graft allegation can shadow the decisiveness the government is looking to project in the context of the recent hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru that was a bid to strip rival BJP of an issue. Insiders fear the chopper row can mar the approaching Parliament session, making it more difficult for finance minister P Chidambaram to lift the gloom with a Budget that was expected to counter the blues.

Things had looked like falling in place for Congress after it successfully blunted saffron aggression on corruption following exposes on BJP chief Nitin Gadkari’s shady business deals. With news coverage moving from scams to saffron bickering, Congress seized the opportunity by effecting a generational change and outlining its future agenda in Jaipur.

In sorry contrast, the Congress on Wednesday appeared to be in firefighting mode again. Party spokesman P C Chacko accused the BJP of resurrecting the corruption bogey to disrupt Parliament despite the Centre having swung into action a year ago when reports of irregularities first surfaced.

“The BJP has nothing in its agenda to oppose the government. So, it is creating the smokescreen of corruption in the helicopter deal (that was initiated by the NDA),” he said, adding, “We want to pin down the BJP propaganda on corruption. So we ordered the CBI inquiry.”

That graft could be a spanner in the works for a larger ‘secular’ consolidation over the BJP’s newfound love for Hindutva in the context of charges of “saffron terror” leveled by home minister Sushilkumar Shinde. The Left bloc launched a strong attack on UPA and demanded the chopper deal be put on hold — areversal of fortunes after Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday threatened to throw the “communists” out of India during the Tripura poll campaign.

That helicopter allegations have followed the leaked telephonic conversation alleging collusion between the public prosecutor and a top corporate accused in the 2G scam, compounding the Congress woes on graft front.
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Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: CBI starts probe into 3,600-cr VVIP helicopter scandal

New Delhi: The CBI on Wednesday received a formal complaint from the government in the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP helicopter scandal and some documents including primary reports, letters and clippings of Italian media stories. Sources said the agency is likely to register a preliminary enquiry (PE) on Thursday.

The CBI has asked the defence ministry to provide all relevant documents of the deal, mode of payment and list of people in IAF and the ministry who handled the deal.

After registering the inquiry, the CBI will send a ‘source query’ to Italy seeking investigating report, interrogation report of Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi and details of the company.

The agency has approached the Indian mission in Italy to provide documents related to the investigation which is in public domain in case they do not succeed in procuring material through official channels, sources said.

The sources added that the CBI is trying to get the report filed by public prosecutor Eugenio Fusco on the basis of which Orsi was arrested as it could help in zeroing in on Indians who could have been alleged beneficiaries of the bribes.

In February 2010, India had inked the Rs 3,600-crore deal to acquire 12 three-engine AW-101 helicopters from AgustaWestland for IAF’s elite communication squadron, which ferries the President, PM and other VVIPs. The deal came under the scanner of Italian agencies after allegations of kickbacks surfaced.

It is alleged that Orsi, who was CEO of the company when the deal was struck, was involved in giving bribes. Around Rs 362 crore, about 10% of the deal, were allegedly given as bribes to ensure that the company clinched the contract.
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Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: Ex-NSA tried to avoid single-vendor situation

New Delhi: Was it a bid to prevent a scandal almost a decade ago which has now led to the present VVIP helicopter scam? It was actually the late Brajesh Mishra, the then national security advisor and principal secretary to PM Atal Behari Vajpayee, who in 2003 had directed the MoD and IAF to change the technical specifications for the acquisition of the 12 VVIP helicopters.

“I am concerned that the framing of the mandatory requirements for the new helicopters has effectively led us into a single-vendor situation,’’ Mishra, in his letter of December 22, 2003, to the then IAF chief Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy had said.

“It is unfortunate that neither the PMO nor the Special Protection Group (which provides proximate security to the PM) was consulted while framing these mandatory requirements. I suggest you and the defence secretary may jointly review this matter to draw up realistic requirements satisfying operational, security and convenience requirements for VVIPs,’’ it added.

Top defence ministry sources say this need to avoid a “single-vendor” situation, in consonance with the laid down norms in India’s defence purchases to avoid corruption and other allegations, was the key for subsequent developments.

“Money and bribes could have changed hands...the CBI will probe that. But the technical evaluation process was followed meticulously, as per the directives of the PMO. There were no short-cuts, no tweaking to suit a particular company,” said a source.

It all began in 1999. IAF had then first proposed the replacement for its ageing Russian-origin Mi-8 helicopters, which are still being used by the elite Communication Squadron to ferry around President, PM and other top dignitaries.

The tender or the RFP (request for proposal) for eight new VVIP choppers was subsequently issued in 2002. Of the four vendors that responded, only the Eurocopter EC-225 chopper passed muster as far as the requirement for being capable of flying at an “operational ceiling” of 6,000-metre was concerned. The AW-101, then called the EH-101, could not participate since it was not certified at that time to fly at 6,000-metre.

With only the EC-225 figuring in the subsequent report submitted to the PMO, Mishra raised the question of the single-vendor situation. The SPG also objected to the cabin height of 1.39-metre, holding it was not adequate for the VVIPs and the armed security personnel who would be on board as well as casualty evacuation.

Apart from also not having the missile airborne warning system, the S-92 also failed to meet the requirement for the 4,500-metre service ceiling. The AW-101 sailed its way through the trials to bag the contract finally inked in February 2010.

Top defence ministry sources say the need to avoid a ‘single-vendor’ situation, in consonance with the laid down norms in India’s defence purchases to avoid corruption and other allegations, was the key for subsequent developments
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