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A ‘memorandum’ seized from the home of alleged middleman Guido Haschke by Italian prosecutors says the brigadier, who was in charge of the flight trials of a contract for 197 light choppers, asked for the money in January 2010, days before the trials began.
The “highly confidential” letter is part of a preliminary chargesheet filed by Italian prosecutors in a Naples court. The letter and other documents were allegedly seized on April 23.
The letter claims the brigadier “made contact” in Bangalore on January 16, 2010 and volunteered information on the progress of the contract. He allegedly shared details of the deficiencies found in the competitors for the contract — Russia’s Kamov, Italian AgustaWestland and Eurocopter — and asked for the money to slant the trial in Agusta’s favour.
“If an agreement is struck, the issues above will become irrelevant. Furthermore, the trials will be conducted in such a way as to favour his sponsors. His request is 0.5 per cent, equal to approximately USD 5 million, payable upon release of the final technical report if contents are as promised,” the letter says.
The Army refused to comment, saying it is not aware of the letter or its contents.
AgustaWestland was eventually disqualified from the bid in May 2010. The Army went ahead with trials involving Eurocopter and Kamov. The defence ministry expected to take a final call on the deal this month.
The seized letter details the “meeting” with the brigadier and says he “offered his services to help eliminate the competition on technical grounds”. “He is very keen on this as it is his last major assignment before retiring,” it says.
“He has requested a reply by tomorrow Jan 19. We have said... we will give a final answer by close of business Wednesday Jan 20,” it letter says.
BIG CORRUPTED ORGANISATION is DEFENCE services. Due to national security nobody opens mouth but if they allowed they will sell the country
One should have been shocked only if the Brigadier had not risen to the occasion or kept with the times. Why should soldiers only pay for the perfidies of the politicians, clerks and judges? Come to think of it- isn't the very idea of VVIP helicopters the most corrupt of the whole deal, when you know that people are dying of hunger and more than 50 pc population lives on less than Rs 30/- per day?
Wrong to say nobody opens mouth. From looks of things, everyone seems to be 'opening mouth' on defence matters. Even in absence of evidence, trial by media, particularly sensationalists like IE not only open mouth, but also pronounce judgement. You are right. We ACTUALLY need to disband the Defence services so they don't sell the nation. Maybe outsource defence to some other more honest country. Any suggestions on that?
It is time that OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT prohibiting availability of defence contracts,QR specs in open domain including evaluation for procurements from private parties, if we are patriots.let us not behave irrationally;the middlemen have access to all data already!
What is new? A request to IE pl. publish about any defense deal where there is no corruption. That will be big news!
