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Italian political party under lens for getting kickbacks from Agusta
NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the Agusta-Westland (AW) scam has found that an Italian political party received 12 million euros (Rs 90.8 crore)
NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the Agusta-Westland (AW) scam has found that an Italian political party received 12 million euros (Rs 90.8 crore) in kickbacks for its support in bagging the Indian deal for 12 choppers.
The payments to Lega Nord (Northern League), a right-wing party in Italy, were part of the 70 million euros that AW paid to bag the Indian contract and was delivered through a former top official of Italian parent firm Finmeccanica.
Confirming the payments, an ED supplementary charge sheet submitted to a Delhi special court last week named Giuseppe Orsi, the then managing director of Finmeccanica, for links with Lega Nord. AW, Finmeccanica and Orsi were among the 19 accused, 13 people and six firms named by the CBI and the ED in their first information reports to probe the irregularities in the 2010 deal.
The ED charge sheet said AW paid over 375 crore in bribes to ease a key technical requirement — service ceiling — that refers to a chopper’s maximum flying elevation.
The service ceiling was reduced to 4,500 from 6,000 metres in March 2005, which enabled the otherwise ineligible AW chopper to re-enter the fray.
The investigators suspect AW may have paid Lega Nord for gaining access to Italian political authorities in the years preceding the conclusion of the Indian deal.
“Details awaited from Italy will throw more light on how exactly Orsi, Agusta-Westland and Finmeccanica benefitted from Lega Nord’s political support in clinching the deal,” said the source.
The rest, from the pool of 70 million euro fund, was paid to AW’s three non-Indian middlemen — 30 million euros to British businessman Christian Michel, and 28 million euros to Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa, according to the charge sheet.
On April 7, Italy’s Milan Court of Appeals awarded jail terms to Orsi and a former AW top official, Bruno Spagnolini, for the 2010 Indian deal.
The ED on Wednesday also charged middleman Christian Michel for routing to India Rs 6.3 crore from the kickbacks he received in the chopper deal.
