AgustaWestland: Michel identified 'AP' as Ahmed Patel

Agencies
April 5, 2019

New Delhi, Apr 5: Christian Michel, the alleged middleman arrested in the AgustaWestland VVIP choppers deal case, is understood to have identified the initials "AP" as Ahmed Patel in a chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) before a court here on Thursday.

The agency, in its supplementary chargesheet filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), said "a part of kickback was paid to defence officials, bureaucrats, mediapersons and important political persons of the ruling party" when the deal was being struck.

The chargesheet said according to the "budget sheet, 30 million euros were paid to Air Force officers, bureaucrats and politicians" to swing the deal in the favour of AgustaWestland for purchasing the choppers to ferry VVIPs across the country.

"Christian Michel James has further disclosed various abbreviations used in the budget sheet, which contains the details of the payments made to Air Force officials, bureaucrats and political persons.

"The recipients of the kickback include several categories of persons namely Air Force officials, bureaucrats including defence ministry officials and top political leaders of the then ruling party. As per Christian Michel James, 'AP' means Ahmed Patel and 'Fam' means Family," the ED said.

At another place in the chargesheet, Michel said, "I cannot say what Haschke was thinking. As a guess, I would think he was talking about Ahmed Patel."

Regarding "Fam", he said it "could mean family".

While the identity of the said Ahmed Patel is not clear, it is understood that it refers to the senior Congress leader. The veteran leader has not been named in the PMLA FIR of the case.

In the same chargesheet, Rajiv Saxena, another accused arrested in the case, has been quoted by the ED as saying that "AP" was a "reference" to Ahmed Patel.

Patel in the past has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

The ED said the kickback paid by the Anglo-Italian firm in the case was "at least about 12 per cent of the contract amount" and around 70 million euros were paid through the two middlemen involved in the case -- Michel and Guido Haschke.

It added that this was an "undisputed fact" that the two middlemen had received kickbacks worth 70 million euros.

The agency said this fact could be corroborated with the receipt of kickbacks in the bank accounts of companies "controlled and beneficially owned" by Michel and Haschke.

It said the company "enlisted" the two as agents for the VVIP choppers deal in India as it wanted to promote its product and ensure that it became a frontrunner to bag the deal.

The central probe agency, in its 3,000-page supplementary chargesheet with 52 main pages, also named David Syms, Michel's alleged business partner, and two firms owned by them -- Global Trade and Commerce Ltd and Global Services FZE -- as accused.

In its first chargesheet filed against Michel in June 2016, the ED had alleged that he and others had received 30 million euros (about Rs 225 crore) from AgustaWestland.

Special Judge Arvind Kumar said he would decide on whether to take cognisance of the ED's supplementary chargesheet and summon the accused on April 6.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
January 7,2020

New Delhi, Jan 7: When a reign of terror was unleashed by "masked goons" in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Sunday, Delhi Police registered two cases against varsity students union president Aishe Ghosh, who was badly injured in the attack, within a span of five minutes.

The registration of cases on two separate complaints against Ghosh and other students filed by JNU security department on January 3 and January 4 were registered on Sunday night when the violence was on, triggering questions about the motive behind the timing.

While the FIRs against Ghosh and others were registered between 8.44 pm and 8.49 pm after the JNUSU president was admitted to AIIMS, an FIR on the Sunday violence was registered on Monday at 5.36 am against unknown persons. The Sunday violence case has been transferred to Crime Branch for further investigations.

Questions are being raised over the registration of FIRs on Sunday while the complaints were filed on the previous days. Students allege that it was an afterthought from the police and authorities, as a nationwide outrage erupted as soon as the violence was reported.

Delhi Police is under attack for not coming to the aid of students targeted by the mob of ABVP activists armed with iron rods and sticks who went on a rampage on the campus. While no single person in the Sunday violence was arrested, the police are also accused of being a "mute spectator" by allowing the rioters to leave the campus without being arrested.

In its complaints, the JNU Security Department has alleged that Ghosh and others entered into a verbal and physical scuffle with security guards, including women, when officials tried to open the Centre for Information System (CIS) that was blocked by students protesting against the fee hike and registration process.

While the January 3 complaint claims that the students switched off the power supply to the CIS and evicted staff forcefully, the January 4 complaint alleged that they damaged the information system.

They also claimed the students damaged the servers, made it dysfunctional, severely damaged optic fibre cables and broke the biometric system in the CIS. The complaint also cited a Supreme Court order that prevented any protest within 100 metres of Administration Block and claimed the students violated the direction.

The FIR filed on Sunday violence on the basis of the statement of Inspector Anand Yadav said that the first phase of violence was reported at 3.45 pm when "40-50 unidentified" people who had "covered their faces" attacked students in Periyar Hostel and the situation was brought under control.

However at around 7 pm, "50-60 people with rods in their hands" targeted students in Sabarmati Hostel in which students were attacked and public property destroyed.

The FIR said that students were injured but skipped the mention of the attack on teachers, who were injured. At least two faculty members Sucharita Sen and Ameet Parameswaran were taken to AIIMS while several other teachers suffered minor injuries.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 12,2020

New Delhi, Feb 12: The Centre on Wednesday said the NRC data in Assam is safe even though some technical issues were visible and that will be resolved soon.

The Union Home Ministry clarification came in view of reports that data of the final list of the National Register of Citizens has been made offline from its official website.

"The NRC data is safe. Some technical issues are in visibility on cloud. These are being resolved soon," a home ministry spokesperson said.

The data was not available for a couple of days and it created panic in the public, mostly among the people excluded from the list as the rejection certificates were yet to be issued.

NRC State Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma accepted that the data has been made offline, but refuted the allegation of any "malafide" intent in it.

The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by IT firm Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the previous coordinator.

So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro, Sarma said.

He said the state coordination committee had decided to do necessary formalities in its meeting on January 30 and wrote to the Wipro during the first week of February.

"Once Wipro makes the data live, it will be available for public. We hope people will be able to access it in the next 2-3 days," Sarma said.

The complete detail of exclusion and inclusion of bonafide Indian citizens in the NRC was uploaded on its official website http://www.nrcassam.nic.in after the final list was published on August 31, 2019.

The final NRC was published by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

After the earlier NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela relinquished the charge on November 11 following his transfer to home state Madhya Pradesh on a direction from the Supreme Court, Sarma was appointed in his place on November 9.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
May 9,2020

May 9: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said the West Bengal government is not allowing trains with migrant workers to reach the state that may further create hardship for the labourers.

In a letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah said not allowing trains to reach West Bengal is "injustice" to the migrant workers from the state.

Referring to the 'Shramik Special' trains being run by the central government to facilitate transport of migrant workers from different parts of the country to various destinations, the home minister said in the letter that the Centre has facilitated more than two lakh migrants workers to reach home.

Shah said migrant workers from West Bengal are also eager to reach home and the central government is also facilitating the train services.

"But we are not getting expected support from the West Bengal. The state government of West Bengal is not allowing the trains reaching to West Bengal. This is injustice with West Bengal migrant labourers. This will create further hardship for them," Shah wrote.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.