New Delhi, July 7: Zohal Hamid, a United States-based businesswoman who hit the headlines after she accused Australian cricketer Luke Pomersbach of assault in May, may have facilitated the operations of a firm linked to a 2011 defence payoffs scandal, documents sent to the Central Bureau of Investigation say.
C. Edmonds Allen, a New York-based lawyer and businessman whose complaints form part of the evidence which led the CBI to arrest New Delhi-based businessman Abhishek Verma and his Romanian-born wife Anca Neacsu last month, says Ms. Hamid was hired to escort influential retired Indian defence officials to an arms fair in Las Vegas.
The CBI alleges that Mr. Verma received $5,30,000 from a Zurich-based equipment supplier Rheinmetall Air Defence to bribe civil servants, to prevent the firm from being blacklisted. It is also investigating allegations that he parked several million dollars more in an escrow account controlled by Mr. Allen.
In a statement sent to the CBI, Mr. Allen alleged that Mr. Verma instructed him to obtain a multiple-entry Indian visa for Ms. Hamid, representing her as a fashion consultant employed by their firm, Ganton. “In the past three years, there have been several other women for whom I was requested to write letters of recommendation to the Indian Consulate for them to visit India for short-term employment. No proof of services was ever given to me or records of payments. Their photographs have been found on dubious websites not in keeping with the services for which recommendations were written,” Mr Allen alleges in a dossier complete with supporting photographs.
“My several requests to Abhishek Verma and Anca Neacsu about this lady’s remunerations and role in the company met with studied silence and winks, but Abhishek Verma once mentioned she was in India to do liaison work on his and Anca Neacsu’s behalf. He also informed me that Ms. Hamid will also be undertaking work for sales of small arms on behalf of the company.”
The Hindu made repeated efforts to contact Ms. Hamid on a cellphone she had used in May, but it was switched off. Her lawyer said he did not have current contact details. Mr. Verma, for his part, has moved a Delhi court saying e-mail produced by Mr. Allen was forgery.
Mr. Allen told The Hindu he had sent the CBI a detailed statement, and that investigators had been in touch. He, however, declined further comment on their conversation.
A CBI spokesperson confirmed that the agency had received a statement from Mr. Allen on Ms. Hamid, but said she was not immediately being investigated. However, “this does not mean the investigation will not turn in that direction at a later stage.”
Earlier this summer, Ms. Hamid accused Pomersbach of having outraged her modesty and physically assaulted her fiancé. The two sides, however, later settled the case out of court.
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