NEW DELHI, 10 March 2007 — With the chances of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) securing extradition of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi waning by the day, the agency has started blaming others for not cooperating with it, including the Ministry of External Affairs.
Refuting this charge, Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said yesterday: “Our ambassador (in Argentina) has been going around with them (the CBI team).”
Quattrocchi, who has been facing an Interpol arrest warrant in connection with the Bofors bribery case, was detained and taken into preventive custody at Iguazu international airport in Misiones province in Argentina while in transit to Buenos Aires on Feb. 6. He was released on bail Feb. 23. India accuses Quattrocchi of taking $7 million in bribes as a middleman in the Indian Army’s $1.2 billion purchase of artillery from Swedish armsmaker Bofors in 1986.
A CBI team is in Argentina to build up the case for Quattrocchi’s extradition before the courts there. Referring to the role being played by the Indian mission in Argentina, Sharma said: “We have a very limited role. We are only the facilitators. Our mission abroad is extending full cooperation to the CBI. “It has given all possible cooperation to the CBI and for it to suggest that it has not, is unfortunate,” the minister said. In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on Thursday, the CBI blamed the ministry for the delay in initiating paperwork seeking Quattrocchi’s extradition and for not informing it about his being released on bail. “The CBI did not receive any information whatsoever about Quattrocchi having been granted bail either from either the Indian Embassy in Buenos Aires or the Ministry of External Affairs or from Interpol,” it said. The agency claimed that it learned about Quattrocchi’s release on bail three days after the event.
Accusing the ministry of adopting a “go-slow” approach, the CBI said that it took eight days to comply with CBI’s request for providing it with a copy of English translation of Argentine extradition law and documents that had to be sent to the Buenos Aires court. By the time the documents were made available, Quattrocchi had been released on bail. Besides, Indian authorities filed the extradition documents on March 1, 20 days after the CBI made the request to the government here.
Rejecting the charges, ministry sources said that CBI had got independent confirmation of Quattrocchi’s detention from Interpol. The CBI took 17 days to make the news about Quattrocchi’s arrest public.
The CBI also says that Swiss authorities are not helping India in ascertaining the source of kickbacks received by Quattrocchi in the Bofors deal.
