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 Rs3,700 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.
Michel’s answers are part of a statement that accounts for nearly 250 pages of the 3,000-page supplementary charge-sheet. His statement, recorded under section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, is legally admissible in court and is being seen as the key to unravelling the mystery of the alleged bribery trail.
Legal issues aside, the charge-sheet has given the BJP a stick to beat the Congress with in an election season. A day after the ED filed the charge-sheet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought up Patel’s name at an election rally in Dehradun. The Congress, however, termed it a “cheap election stunt” by a “panic driven Modi government” set to face defeat. Patel has dismissed all allegations.
“The charge-sheet is an instrument for political purposes,” Rosemary Patrizi, Michel’s Italian lawyer, told THE WEEK from Italy. “No charges have been proved. The budget sheet being referred to by the ED was written by Guido Haschke (another middleman in the case). Everyone knows that Michel does not know about the document. The Italian court had also found it to be a useless piece of paper as there isn’t any date on it and it could be just an idea [created] by someone, which is not linked to anything in reality.”
The reference to Haschke is significant. The ED had received the budget sheet as part of the letters rogatory sent to Switzerland, following which the Swiss police recovered the document from Haschke’s mother’s home, in Lugano, on the Italy-Switzerland border.
More significantly, the agency’s fresh evidence consists of nearly 250 fax messages, received through letters rogatory, from countries like Italy and Mauritius, which detail each message exchanged between Michel and some of the other accused in the case. These include messages from alleged dealers talking about then finance minister, defence minister, UPA chairperson, cabinet meetings and how Michel had been working on building political support and held meetings at appropriate levels. ED sources said these messages could form key evidence as they have a valid date and time, and their content has been accepted by Michel, except for one message that refers to the “son of the Italian lady”.
Michel’s defence team has gone into overdrive. His lawyer Aljo K. Joseph, has been meeting him in jail regularly—for fifteen minutes twice a day. “We have categorically stated that the kind of confession being demanded by the prosecution is basically a confession that the amount of money was paid to Congress leaders, which Michel has outrightly rejected,” said Joseph. “Michel has said that whatever transaction was made by him was a business transaction. Had Michel named Congress leaders, he would have been walking free and not being mentally tortured inside the jail and put along with hardcore criminals in Tihar’s Jail 2. Every movement [made by him] is being watched. The government has chosen to curtail his freedom and keep him in isolation, torture him and prepare him for a confession. After he was kept in isolation for 15 to 20 days, the ED moved an application under section 50 of PMLA. The message was clear—if he did not cooperate, he could be tortured further.”
ED officials denied these charges, and said that Michel was not only meeting his lawyer, but also being produced in court regularly; he never complained of any coercion.
Joseph said that if Michel wanted to name Congress leaders, he could have made that statement in Dubai and become a witness in the case, rather than spend three months in jail after his extradition from the UAE on December 4.
But Michel’s chopper woes seem to be far from over. In its supplementary charge-sheet, the ED has named three new entities—Michel’s alleged partner David Syms, and Global Services Ltd and Global Trading Ltd, which were Michel’s firms. According to the ED, Michel had used the companies to route the bribe from AgustaWestland. The company paid €18.2 million to one of the firms owned by Michel to repurchase WG-30 helicopters, which it had earlier sold to India, from Pawan Hans Limited. Sources said that during custodial interrogation, Michel disclosed 30 such services that were rendered as part of a post-contract service agreement between AgustaWestland and Michel’s firms. However, sources say that this was actually a facade created to mask the kickbacks as legitimate transfer of funds for services.
“Michel had played no role in the delivery of services as well as supply of spares to the customers by AgustaWestland,” said ED officials. The agency also found that, despite receiving the money from AgustaWestland, Michel did not buy the choppers; they have been gathering dust in Mumbai and Delhi for a decade now. The ED suspects that the money was used for the bribes. The ED also has a letter written by Syms, which says that the purchase of WG-30 choppers was India-specific. The letter also names the shipper who was supposed to move the WG-30s to London. When questioned by the ED, the shipper said that he did not know of any such shipment. Pawan Hans officials, meanwhile, have told the ED that the choppers are still lying with them.
While Michel told the ED that he had gone to the Pawan Hans aerodrome in Juhu to see the grounded WG-30s and spare parts, Sanjiv Aggarwal, company secretary, Pawan Hans Limited, said that no one had ever contacted the company or visited the premises for the same.
From high-profile choppers to some dust-laden ones, Michel’s fate seems to be inextricably linked to chopper deals.