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Quattrocchi very much involved in Bofors payoffs, CBI tells court

The Central Bureau of Investigation told the Delhi high court on Monday that former Snamprogetti representative Ottavio Quattrocchi was ''very much involved'' in the Bofors guns payoffs case, and had received some $ 7.34 million in ''kickbacks''.

Opposing Quattrochi's petition seeking the quashing of the non-bailable warrants issued against him by a CBI court in February last year, senior counsel K K Venugopal, appearing for the CBI, said the trial court had rightly issued the NBWs after going through the relevant CBI documents.

Venugopal added that Quattrocchi's signatures appear on all bank documents pertaining to the transfer of the Bofors kickbacks money from M/s A E Services to to M/s Colbar Investment Ltd, which was to be operated by Quattrocchi or his wife Maria, and then moved under his signature to M/s Wetelsen Overseas SS and later transferred to Inter-Investment Development Co.

A division bench consisting of Justice Devender Gupta and Justice N G Nandi posted further arguments for April 23.

Accusing Quattrocchi of making false statements before the court, the CBI counsel pleaded that the high court dismiss his petition.

However, senior counsel Dinesh Mathur, appearing for Quattrocchi, said his client was nowhere in the picture in the signing of the Bofors agreement. Neither was he a signatory nor was his name mentioned anywhere in the $ 650 million deal signed by India to buy the howitzer field guns from Bofors, Sweden.

''Under what law and under what presumption had the CBI stated that the money transferred by A E Services to Quattrocchi was Bofors money?''

Quattrocchi may be a beneficiary of A E Services but not of Bofors, his counsel added.

Refuting CBI's allegations that he had fled from India within six days of the Indian government getting some information on him from the Swiss authorities, Quattrocchi's counsel said the CBI could have intercepted him at the airport.

''The money was received in foreign currency in a foreign country by a foreigner. Even today, the money is lying in a foreign country. The CBI cannot prosecute my client for it,'' Mathur added.

UNI

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