Flight Details

The Enforcement Directorate has fresh evidence that could trace the money trail in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case.

- Namrata Biji Ahuja

CHRISTIAN MICHEL has a bad handwriting; he claims to suffer from dyslexia. His thoughts, however, are clear. The British national—an alleged middleman in the 03,700 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case—uses simple words and short sentences to answer each question put to him by the Enforcement Directorate. Within a fortnight, Michel has managed to write, in legible handwriting, his statement to the ED, which forms a key part of the voluminous charge-sheet the agency filed on April 4. At first, he wrote in upper case, but soon turned to cursive to finish his task quickly, said an investigator.

The supplementary charge-sheet has kicked off a political storm, as it says that “recipients of the kickbacks (to swing the VVIP chopper deal in favour of AgustaWestland) include several categories of persons, namely

Air Force officers, bureaucrats including defence ministry officials and top political leaders of the then ruling party. “As per Christian Michel James, ‘AP’ (in the ‘budget sheet’ of the deal) means Ahmed Patel (UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s aide) and ‘Fam’ means family,” said the ED. A certain “Mrs Gandhi” is also named in the charge-sheet.

While the fresh charge-sheet has set the cat among the pigeons, it does not say whether the bribery trail reaches the Congress top brass; no Congress leader is an “accused” in the case.

Michel has not denied that the money—pegged at €70 million—exchanged hands at various levels, but it is yet to be established whether a part of this amount reached any Congress member. ED sources said further investigations could include questioning individuals who could help trace the money trail.