New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate Thursday filed a supplementary charge sheet against Christian Michel, the alleged middleman arrested in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland chopper scam, before a Delhi court.
The charge sheet was also filed against two firms — Global Services FZE and Global Traders and one of its directors, David Syms. Syms and Michel are both directors of the two firms.
Special judge Arvind Kumar said he will take cognisance of the agency’s charge sheet on April 6.
Michel was arrested in Dubai and extradited to India last December. He’s accused of receiving kickbacks worth 30 million euro (about Rs 225 crore), said the ED in its chargesheet.
Controversy erupted over the deal in 2013, when Finmeccanica chairman Giuseppe Orsi and AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini were arrested in February on charges that they bribed middlemen to clinch the deal with the IAF. The middlemen in question were Guido Ralph Haschke, his partner Carlos Gerosa, and Michel.
All three alleged middlemen are being probed by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The ED had earlier told the court that Michel received 24.25 million euros and 1,60,96,245 pounds from the AgustaWestland deal.
Statement from ThePrint Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta
The claim in the Enforcement Directorate chargesheet against Christian Michel, a key suspect in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal scam, that Michel had admitted to hiring the services of a person named Guy Douglas to influence Shekhar Gupta to tone down an article in The Indian Express, is 100% untruth, laughable and utterly preposterous.
The truth is the exact opposite. The Indian Express, under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta, broke the story first, was at the forefront of the media investigation into the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal scam and was widely commended for its coverage.
The timing of the lie by an alleged middleman, extradited into the custody of government agencies as an eventual outcome of the media investigation, raises deep suspicions about its motive.
(With PTI inputs)
Also read: What is the AgustaWestland scam, and how Christian Michel’s extradition will impact it
Ha ha……Ok, You said that the timing of the lie raises deep suspicions about its motive. Tell us what is the ‘decent and right time’ of 2019 when you would not raise such excuse….