Click to play videoNew Delhi: Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, an accused in the Bofors gun scandal, has once again defeated the Indian government’s attempt to extradite him.
Quattrocchi left for Milan after India failed to appeal against an Argentinean court’s decision not to extradite him. But was Quattrocchi’s victory the result of a bureaucratic blunder or was there a conspiracy to let him go?
Who asked the public prosecutor handling India’s case to withdraw from the Supreme Court of Argentina an appeal against the lower court’s order? Till now no one in the Indian government has explained this.
The public prosecutor withdrew the case last week and Quattrocchi got back his passport last Thursday, but the Indian embassy in Argentina inform the Central Bureau of Investigation about this only after six days.
CBI director Vijay Shanker has said he can do little in the matter, as extradition matters are handled by the External Affairs Ministry.
But External Affairs Ministry know about the developments last week? Last year, when Quattrocchi's accounts were de-frozen in London, PM Manmohan Singh said it was the CBI's decision and not his government's.
This time the CBI says that it's the government who is responsible. Who is actually to blame for the mis-handling of the Quattrocchi case? The government won’t take the blame and neither will the CBI.
Quattrocchi cries harassment
Quattrocchi on Wednesday claimed that the CBI was “persecuting” him to get to his ''friends in India''. In an interview to a television channel, he said, ''I am proud of what I have done in India, the friendship I have established in the country.''
According to him, the CBI's motive was to reach somebody, either a politician or an industrialist. ''Their aim is to reach one of them and not Ottavio Quattrocchi.''
Lashing out at the CBI, Quattrocchi said, ''The CBI have been pursuing the case for over 21 years, and have never come out with even an iota of evidence against me''
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