New Delhi: An Italian appeals court on Monday acquitted two former Leonardo executives who were accused of paying bribes to Indian Air Force officials in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal.
Giuseppe Orsi, former chief executive of the state-controlled defence group, formerly known as Finmeccanica, and Bruno Spagnolini, once at the head of helicopter unit AgustaWestland, were cleared of charges as "there isn't sufficient proof", according to the sentence read out in court.
In December 2016, Italy's highest court had ordered a re-trial of the case, after the former executives of the Rome-based group were found guilty on corruption charges related to a Rs 3,600 crore contract to supply a dozen helicopters to the Indian government
The scale of the AgustaWestland scam was around Rs. 3,600 crore, however, by June 2014 the Central Government had managed to recover Rs. 2,068 crore of the total losses. The “scam” dates back to February 2010, when the Indian Government signed a contract to purchase 12 AgustaWestland AW101 helicopters for the Communications Sqaudrons of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
These were meant as transport for VVIP passengers such as the President and Prime Minister of India. However, it became apparent only three years later on February 12, 2013 when Orsi, the CEO of Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland's parent company, was arrested by Italian authorities. It emerged that several top Indian politicians and officials were accused of accepting bribes from AgustaWestland middlemen as kickbacks for the awarding of the contract.
Christen Michel, a middleman, had reportedly instructed an AgustaWestland employee to target people close to former Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Michel’s note to Peter Hulett, an AgustaWestland employee, reportedly contained the names of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ahmed Patel, Pranab Mukherjee, M. Veerappa Moily, Oscar Fernandes, M. K. Narayanan and Vinay Singh as potential targets.
A day after Orsi’s arrest, then Defence Minister AK Antony ordered a probe in the case, which opened a Pandora’s Box. In that same month, the CBI started a preliminary inquiry against 11 people, including former IAF Chief SP Tyagi and three of his brothers. The FIR also mentioned Italy-based Finmeccanica, UK-based AgustaWestland and Chandigarh-based IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix.
In March, Defence Minister AK Antony admitted that there had been corruption and bribes had exchanged hands. In April 2016, an Italian court said there was "reasonable belief that corruption took place" and by December, SP Tyagi had been arrested by the CBI in the case.
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