Sunday, February 17, 2013

Agusta Westland Chopper SCAM: ‘Brigadier too sought bribes from Italians’

NEW DELHI: With fresh details of the Augusta Westland scam coming to light everyday more names from the Indian defence establishment are being brought under the scanner.

Latest reports say that Italian investigators had found a confidential document mentioning names of two Indian army officials-identified only as Brigadier Saini and Colonel Siddhu.

Brigadier Saini is alleged to have sought bribe money from the Italians.

Saini, who had replaced Siddhu, is alleged to have made contact with the Italians and “offered his services in order to help eliminate the competition” on technical grounds for 0.5% commission (about $5 million)

The investigators suspect the bribe request was for a subse quent helicopter contract fo the army.

Meanwhile Colonel Siddhu i allegedly the one who turned the ‘tide of the tests/evidence’ in the favour of the Italians.

The document dated January 18, 2010 just before the evaluation trials for helicop ters, which was on January 25 2010, also brings out the fac that the middlemen knew the composition of the trial testing team which is mentioned in the document as comprising three pilots and one enginee from the Army while two pilot and one engineer were to come from the Air Force.
COURTESY:
   16 Feb 2013
    Hindustan Times (Mumbai)
    Sanjib Kr Baruah sanjib.baruah@hindustantimes.com
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

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