Christian Michel knew Carlos Gerosa, Guido Haschke, says driver

Narayan Bahadur, driver of Christian Michel — European middleman in the multi-crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal — has told CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sleuths that he would often hear Mr Michel using the names of Carlos Gerosa and Guido Haschke in phone conversations.

According to sources, both the Central agencies have already recorded the the driver’s statement. During his earlier examinations, Bahadur had confirmed the addresses of the properties bought by Mr Michel and admitted that he looked after his flat and farmhouses in the national capital. He also told investigators that he once picked up Mr Michel’s three friends from a hotel in South Delhi and took them to a bungalow at Sainik farms, where the men were received by Sanjeev Tyagi, a cousin of the former Indian Air Force Chief S.P. Tyagi. The ED on Friday questioned S.P. Tyagi in connection with the controversial AgustaWestland chopper deal. He was subjected to a marathon 10-hour questioning on Thursday also by the ED investigators.

The CBI on Friday questioned three cousins of former IAF chief — Sandeep, Sanjeev, Rajeev — at the agency headquarters here. The three brothers have been named in the CBI’s FIR. Sources claimed that during examination Sanjeev Tyagi admitted that he had financial dealings with Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke. He also admitted property dealings with former IAF Chief. However, sources claimed that two accused Sanjeev Tyagi and Gautam Khaitan remained evasive and concealed certain crucial information during questioning. The CBI may make some significant arrests in the case in a day or two. “When asked specific questions pertaining to his financial dealings with Mr Gerosa and Mr Haschke, Sanjeev Tyagi did not give proper details and remained evasive”, sources said.

Giving details about the questioning, sources claimed Mr Khaitan, a Delhi-based lawyer and an accused in the case, also “concealed” information pertaining to his companies and AgustaWestland. He was asked to bring specific documents which he was not carrying with him at the time of questioning, they added. Sources said Mr Khaitan on Thursday had admitted setting up a shell company called IDS (Tunisia) through which the alleged kickbacks were received from AgustaWestland which were then routed to different countries and from there to India. CBI had registered a case against former Air Chief S.P. Tyagi along with 13 others, including his cousins and the European middlemen.

The allegation against the former Air Chief was that he reduced flying ceiling of the helicopter from 6,000m to 4,500m (15,000ft) which put AgustaWestland helicopters in the race for the deal without which its choppers were not even qualified for submission of bids. Mr Tyagi has denied allegations against him and said the change of specifications, which brought AgustaWestland into contention, was a collective decision.