Q can draw $29 million more

S Gurumurthy
First Published : 19 Oct 2009 11:57:00 PM IST
Last Updated : 19 Oct 2009 06:03:58 PM IST

The truth about bribery in the Bofors case which haunted the ruling family for over 20 years is now awaiting the signal from the Supreme Court for its final burial. The Central government told the Supreme Court on September 29 it had decided to withdraw the case against Quattrocchi — more famously known as ‘Q’. If that happens, it would be the end of the pursuit of the buccaneers who had looted the Indian public in the Bofors deal. This is what happens when the accused captures power over the prosecutor. No court, including the Supreme Court, can dispense justice if the prosecutor joins hand with the accused and refuses to prove the case.

If the Supreme Court accepts the plea of the government, the corrupt will claim that the Supreme Court itself has said there is no case against them and claim victory and also charge those who pursued the case with having persecuted them politically through a false case.

When Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister he was blatantly protecting the accused in the Bofors case. But Narasimha Rao, who became the prime minister in 1991, was more even-handed; he supported the CBI in its effort to get at the accused Q and also assisted the accused to escape the country! Later, in August 1999, when Sonia Gandhi, with whose family Q shared close relations, was baptised into politics, she gave a clean chit to her former Italian compatriot. When the media questioned her on Q’s guilt in the Bofors case, she said. ‘‘The CBI has said he is a suspect. We have never seen the papers naming him in the deal. They (the NDA government) should show the papers establishing he is guilty.” But the papers which showed that Q had taken the bribe remained strewn all over in the media and in the court for almost a decade. Here is a quick recall of the evidence about Q looting Indian public money, which was in public domain for over 15 years.

In 1985, the Rajiv Gandhi government was dithering for over a year on which gun to buy — the British, Austrian or Swedish. Two brokers engaged by the Swedish gun maker Bofors could not expedite the deal. Suddenly, in the second half of 1985, A E Services (AES), a shell company based in London, made this offer to Bofors: “Look. If we get you the deal by March 31, 1986, give us a fee of three per cent. If not, don’t pay.” Bofors accepted the offer and signed up with AES on October 15, 1985. Unless Bofors knew that the man, or the woman, behind AES had had the clout to get it done from the Rajiv government, it would never have signed with a shell company.

And AES did get the Rajiv government to sign the contract with Bofors on March 22, 1986 — seven days ahead of the target date of March 31, 1986. Within six months, AES got the first tranche of its fee of $7.3 million — the full payment due being $36.5 million. Proof emerged slowly that this money finally went to Q, showing he was the man behind the shell.

* Bofors paid (on September 3,1986) $7.3 million into AES’ account number 18051-53 in Nordfinanz Bank, Zurich.

* Two weeks later (on September 16, 1986) AES transferred $7 million to an account in the name of Colbar Investments, controlled by Q and Maria.

* As the Bofors scam had become a huge issue by 1988, Q and Maria began shifting their loot, grown with interest, from place to place — Geneva to Channel Islands, to New York to Austria, in a bid to hide it. On July 25, 1988, $7.9 million moved from Colbar to Wetelsen Overseas SA, in UBS, Geneva. On May 21, 1990, $9.2 million moved from Wetelson to IIDCL, a company in Channel Islands. On June 5, 1990, $2.4 million was transferred to a code-named account ‘Robusta’ in Banque Karfinco SA from Swiss Bank Corp, New York. On June 12, 1990, $5.3 million was transferred to code-named accounts ‘Arabica’, ‘Robusta’ and ‘Luxor’ in Austria from Swiss bank accounts in Geneva.

* Later, in June 2003, Interpol found that Q and Maria had two accounts, bearing numbers 5A5151516L and 5A5151516M in the London branch of the Swiss bank BSI AG with €3 million and $1 million. These accounts were frozen on CBI’s request.

* The first thing the UPA-I did was to defreeze the account to enable Q and Maria to withdraw and run away with the money. The next thing it did was to allow Q to escape from Argentina where he was detained.

And now the UPA-II has decided to bury the case altogether, of course with the stamp of the Supreme Court of India. It is not that the UPA is keen to protect Q; it has to protect Q to ensure that its chairperson Sonia Gandhi is not embarrassed. That Sonia, Maria and Q were close family friends was established by the CBI search of Q’s residence in 1993. It found that they shared annual holidays, dined together at weekends, had joint family photographs and left each other’s children in one another’s custody. These pieces of evidence instead of becoming proof against Q’s proximity by which he looted the Indian people have become the reason for the UPA government to withdraw the case altogether. Sten Lindstorm, the Swedish police investigator who probed the Bofors fraud in Sweden, told the Indian government that ‘Sonia must be questioned on the scam’ and on her links with Q. Any further discussion needed on why the UPA government is keen to do down the Bofors case?

QED: The present generation of readers were toddlers when the Bofors scam broke out. So most of them would not know that the Bofors scam involved a total pay-off of $126 million including $36.5 million to AES shell — read Q. Only 20 per cent of the pay-off — that is Rs 64 crore — was paid by the time the scandal broke out as the pay-off was linked to proportion of the gun purchase amount paid by India. Since the Indian government had paid only 20 per cent of the amount, the bribe paid at that time was limited to 20 per cent. Further bribe was to be paid under the contract only when Indian government paid the further purchase money. The Indian government has subsequently paid up the full balance consideration; but because the scam had broken out and the Bofors case was on, further payment of bribes had remained suspended. Now that the prosecution is being withdrawn, the buccaneers are free to draw the balance bribe money from Bofors. Q will get his balance $29 million and others would get their balance of $227 million. In today’s rupee terms, Q’s further $29 million means Rs 140 crore plus. The entire bribe money at current rupee value of the dollar will exceed Rs 600 crore! It’s worth waiting for 20 years, isn’t it?.

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About the author:

S Gurumurthy is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues