New Delhi: Equipped with crucial information from Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, the CBI is now preparing to start a fresh round of questioning in the multi-crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal case.
“Now, the agency has sufficient evidence to proceed further in this case as its all pending judicial requests have been recently executed by the foreign agencies, including authorities concerned in the UAE and Singapore,” top sources in the CBI said. It is reliably learnt that the CBI may soon start questioning, including senior Congress leaders who held important portfolios during the UPA-2 regime.
Sources said, “Information provided by both countries — UAE and Singapore — are crucial for the CBI. Both the countries were recently approached through diplomatic channels for execution of the CBI’s letters rogatory (LRs) or judicial requests at the earliest”. Now the agency has received responses to the LRs it sent to eight countries for establishing money trail in the Rs 3767-crore AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal case, they added. Sources said the agency has received responses from Mauritius, Singapore, the UAE, Tunisia, Italy, British Virgin Island, the UK and Switzerland.
“The role of a senior Congress leader is being probed on the basis of the ruling given by the Milan court of appeals — equivalent to an Indian high court — on April 8 and information provided by the foreign agencies,” sources said.
The 226-page court ruling mentioned names of several Congress leaders, primarily in communication between the middlemen. The judgment also mentioned statements given by the middleman Guido Haschke, documents recovered from his suitcase and his conversations with his business partner Carlo Gerosa and the London-based alleged middleman Christian Michel, among other witnesses.
As part of its investigations, the agency is focusing on the money trail of suspected kickbacks of over 50 million Euros (about Rs 369 crore at present exchange rates) believed to have been moved across eight countries. The case is being probed by specially constituted a SIT headed by Additional Director Rakesh Asthana, who is at present in-charge of the CBI.
