SATURDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2013 11:32 J GOPIKRISHNAN | NEW DELHI
A mysterious family has emerged as the major recipient of the payoff in the Rs 3,700 cr AgustaWestland helicopter deal. In the 64-page chargesheet filed in the Italian court, pages 40 and 41 refer to “the family” which got 28 million Euro (around Rs 200 cr) as kickback from the Finmeccanica, the Italian manufacturer of the AgustaWestland (AW) helicopters.
“We have had extensive discussion on Sunday, the 8th of May, 2011, and it has come to light that there were two agreements in place with AW which is where the misunderstanding has arisen. One agreement was for EUR 42mn with the team and other for EUR 28mn (not less than 5% of the total contract value) with the family.
“The team has agreed to reduce their EUR 42mn to EUR 30mn while recognising the need for the agreement of EUR 29mn with the family to be honoured in full,” said the document, which is the part of the chargesheet.
According to the chargesheet, this document was seized from the bedroom of middleman Haschke’s mother during a raid in Switzerland in April 2012. The chargesheet also talks about a dispute between another middleman Christian Michel and Haschke on sharing the commission amount. Michel was forced to accept around 12 million Euro (around 85 crore) to accommodate “the family.”
The chargesheet has details about the separate payments made to each member of another family — the Tyagis - amounting to 4,00,000 Euros (around Rs 3.5 crore).
According to the Italian investigators, the next tranche of evidences and the second chargesheet is expected to be filed by March-end.
The BJP on Friday stepped up pressure on the UPA regime asking it to reveal the identity of “the family” that received Rs 200 crore kickbacks.
“Who finalised and signed the VVIP chopper deal?, asked BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar. He also demanded the Government to answer. “Who received the kickbacks?”
He said the Italian chargesheet talks about payment of 28 million Euros to ‘The Family’ at least at two points. “The nation wants to know who “The Family’ is?” Javadekar told reporters.
In its Friday edition, The Pioneer quoted French and Italian newspaper reports claiming that the main commission agent Christian Michel’s late father was “close to the Congress party”, and the other middleman Guido Ralph Haschke was a director of Emaar MGF, a real estate company owned by relatives of Kanishka Singh, who is associated with a Congress high-up.
Meanwhile, BJP national secretary Kirit Somaiya on Friday wrote to the CBI seeking an investigation into the role of Kanishka Singh in the helicopter deal. In his petition to CBI, pointing out that one of the Italian middle man Guido Haschke was a Director with the real estate company, Somalia said that Emaar MGF owned by Kanishka’s relatives benefited from the chopper deal.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/127977-probe-who-is-the-family-bjp.html