Ottavio Quattrocchi - The Bofors Scandal

The Bofors Scandal

In 1984, a tender was floated for Howitzer guns for the Indian Army. On evaluation, the French Sofma gun was found to be the best in terms of price and features. The Army needed a range of 30 km; Army chief Krishnaswamy Sundarji favoured the Sofma because in field trials showed its range as 29.2 km against 21.5 for Bofors. Furthermore, as was revealed much later, Bofors was (illegally) permitted to alter its bid without re-tendering. Eventually, despite the objections of the army and others, the order went to Bofors.

The Bofors scandal erupted after a 234445567 report on Swedish radio, claiming that Bofors had paid bribes to secure the contract. A firm called AE Services was named - it was found to have a paid up capital of lira 100, and no employees The reporter Chitra Subramaniam of The Hindu obtained the private diary of Bofors MD Martin Ardbo, which revealed comments such as "Q's involvement may be a problem because of closeness to R.". The identity of "Q" became clearer when Chitra identified the Swiss bank where the AE Services' money went to, and determined that it was operated by Ottavio Quattrocchi.And evidently R meant Rajiv Gandhi These were subsequently reinforced by the documents obtained by CBI from Switzerland, but these were eventually ruled out in court because they were photocopies, and not originals.

Once the scandal broke, the ruling Congress Party came under severe fire, eventually losing the elections in 1989. In July 1993, the Swiss courts had permitted naming the account operators, and Quattrocchi had been officially named. At this point, CBI attempted to question Quattrocchi, and permission was sought to impound his passport. However, just before Quattrocchi could be detained, on the night of July 29–30, 1993, Quattrocchi left Delhi for Kuala Lumpur. It was alleged that he had been let off as part of a deal between Sonia Gandhi and the-then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao.

In March 1999, Quattrocchi gave an interview claiming that never received any payment from Bofors, and that he did not have "any connection with A.E. Services". Around the same time, Sonia Gandhi spoke up for him in her first press conference

The CBI has found him suspect. But we have not seen till today the papers that he has done something.

On October 22, 1999, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA government in power, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a chargesheet against Quattrocchi, naming AE Services as a front company run by Quattrocchi and his wife Maria. Based on 500 documents released by Swiss banks after protracted legal delays, the CBI framed charges against Quattrocchi and his wife, Maria; Win Chadha and his wife, Kanta. Among the conspirators named in the case were Rajiv Gandhi, and some other party functionaries. Chitra Subramaniam showed that Quattrocchi, through A.E. Services, had been paid 3% of the sale, about US $ 7 million, as commission.

Attempts to extradite Quattrocchi from Malaysia failed owing to lack of compelling evidence and in 2003 Quattrocchi returned to Italy. It has been reported that Indian requests for extradition or serving the Interpol warrant were turned down by Italy, who have requested to see the evidence and prosecute Quattrocchi in Italian courts.

On February 5, 2004 the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others, citing inadequate evidence that any of the commission was actually paid to them. Sonia Gandhi celebrated:

However, the case was not dead; two charges - cheating, and causing wrongful loss to the Government, continue in the courts.

Meanwhile Win Chadha also died.

On May 31, 2005, the High Court of Delhi dismissed the Bofors case allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja, a main point was the technical issue that the CBI had not certified the photocopies of the vital documents from the Swedish authorities it had submitted to the court.