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ED questions Natwar on Volcker issue
ED officials, probing Indian angle in Oil-for-Food scam, quizzed the ex-External Affairs Minister for nearly two hours.
Enforcement Directorate, probing the Indian angle in the Oil-for-Food scam, questioned former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh for nearly two hours on Friday evening.
Singh was questioned at the Directorate's zonal office after he was served summons by the ED to appear before it "as per his convenience."
The former External Affairs Minister chose the zonal office of Directorate for questioning rather than the headquarters where all others including his son Jagat Singh, his friend Andleep Sehgal and others were quizzed by ED.
The ED was to examine Singh in connection with some of the documents procurred by it from Jordan and Iraq.
The Directorate is inquiring into the Indian connections in the scam brought out by the Volcker Committee report.
ED officials had questioned Andaleep Sehgal, Director of Hamdan Exports, who was mentioned in Volcker probe report on Iraq's Oil-for-Food programme, Jagat, Zaidi and Aneil Matherani, India's former envoy to Croatia several times as part of their investigations.
While there was no official confirmation of the questioning, sources said the Directorate has taken this step on the basis of progress made so far in its probe into the dealings of Indians with the ousted Saddam Hussein regime of Iraq in the Oil-for-Food programme under UN aegis between 1996 and 2003.
