CBI: Gautam Khaitan admits middlemen paid him

Gautam Khaitan claims these payments not ‘kickbacks’

The CBI, probing the multi-crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal, on Thursday claimed that Gautam Khaitan, a Delhi-based lawyer and an accused in the case, had admitted receiving payments from Carlos Gerosa and Guido Hashke, both middlemen in the VVIP helicopter deal. Mr Khaitan, however, rejected that the payments he had received were part of any kickbacks, sources said.

Sources in the CBI said: “Khaitan admitted he received payments from European middlemen Haschke and Gerosa.” Mr Khaitan and Air Vice-Marshal N.V. Tyagi (Retd) were examined by the CBI on the helicopter deal at the agency’s headquarters. While the questioning of Mr Khaitain continued for around 10 hours, AVM Tyagi left within four hours after recording his statement before the investigators. The CBI has now summoned former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi’s cousins Sandeep, Sanjeev and Rajeev for questioning on Friday. The three brothers had been named in the CBI’s FIR.

The Enforcement Directorate, which is also probing the case, on Thursday questioned the former IAF chief. ACM Tyagi arrived at the ED’s Delhi zonal office at around 11 am and his examination went on around 10 hours, till late in the evening. Sources said the former Air Chief’s statement was recorded by ED sleuths under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

In an attempt to crack the suspect code names and alleged kickbacks paid in the VVIP helicopter deal, the ED has sought information from the defence ministry, and asked the income-tax department and Financial Intelligence Unit to share details about officials and other individuals in the case. Sources said the ED has sought property details on 10 serving and retired officials of the defence ministry and the Indian Air Force involved in the procurement process of AgustaWestland helicopters at some point in service. Sources said ED investigators had made some analysis of the probable identity of these code names and so wanted to investigate the flow of funds and “proceeds of crime” and possible kickbacks in the acquisition of helicopters.

Regarding Mr Khaitan’s questioning, sources in the CBI said: “Khaitan agreed taking payment from Haschke and Gerosa. He, however, denied that it was part of kickbacks to clinch the deal.” Mr Khaitan, who is an advocate and a former board member of Aeromatrix, a company that was allegedly used to route the bribe money, is named in the CBI’s FIR as one of the accused. The focus of the questioning was his alleged links with Italian middlemen Gerosa and Haschkhe, the sources said.

The CBI had registered a case against former the IAF chief and 13 others, including his cousins and European middlemen. The allegation against the former Air Chief was that he reduced the flying ceiling of the helicopter from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres (15,000 ft), which put AgustaWestland helicopters in the race for the deal, without which its helicopters were not even qualified for the submission of bids.

The external affairs ministry, meanwhile, has directed a number of Indian missions abroad to ask the countries concerned to speed up executing CBI’s Letters Rogatory over the AgustaWestland helicopter scam after a request by the agency. The CBI had a few days back written a letter to the MEA on expediting execution of the LRs, that are judicial requests to foreign nations for legal assistance in criminal cases. The LRs were issued to Italy, Tunisia, Mauritius, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, Britain, United Arab Emirates and Switzerland. “Yes, I can confirm we have received a communication from the CBI seeking an update on execution reports of the Letters Rogatory sent earlier to eight countries. We have once again written to our missions in the countries where the execution reports are pending to impress upon them the need to expeditiously execute the LRs and to send the execution reports at the earliest,” the MEA said Thursday.