Click to play videoNew Delhi: It’s virtually curtains down on the Bofors controversy. The 20-year-old politically surcharged investigation suffered what could be its final setback at a small court in Argentina.
Quattrocchi will not be extradited. The only flicker of hope, the Italian businessman will still have to wait to get his passport back till the CBI files its appeal.
He is a relieved man today - Ottavio Quattrocchi will not be coming to India to face trial that's what a lower court in Argentina said after two days of intense arguments in a court in el dorado 1,500 kilometres from capital Buenos Aires.
Quattrocchi said, “I am free and I am very happy and I am very confident on the judiciary in Argentina who would do justice.”
The CBI now has the option of appealing in Argentina's Supreme Court by June 20. Sixty-eight-year-old Quattrocchi was detained in Argentina in February under a 1997 Interpol Red Corner notice and India formally requested that Argentina extradite him in March.
Questions are now being raised whether the CBI pursued the case sincerely enough. Quattrocchi did not forget to shake hands with the CBI investigator after the verdict.
Former CBI director Joginder Singh says, “Yes this case is political because there has been lot of political interference on his behalf to let him out.”
The Italian businessman, accused of making money in the Bofors arms deal, has been a close friend of Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi's family. For the Congress, the verdict came as a big relief.
Congress spokesman Satyabrat Chaturvedi said, “Congress has nothing to do with this matter. It is a legal issue in a foreign country.”
After this judgement, it now seems that the Bofors controversy has lost the political firepower that it has generated over the past 20 years.
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