VVIP choppers deal: ED to request action on LRs

Enforcement Directorate (ED) is expected to issue follow up requests on its earlier Letters Rogatories (LRs) to at least ten countries in connection with its money laundering probe in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case.
Officials said while seven of the LRs (judicial requests) have been already dispatched, three are being sent.
The agency has obtained, from the courts, a total of ten LRs to countries like Tunisia, Italy, United Kingdom, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mauritius, Israel, Finland, Singapore and Denmark in order to obtain details about the financial transactions that have taken place in the case by the accused firms and individuals named in its charge sheet filed before a court here last year.

They said the agency is also expected to summon former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief S P Tyagi for questioning in the case in the near future. He has been questioned by CBI last year.
A court in Italy's Milan has recently sentenced Italian defence and aerospace major Finmeccanica's former chief Giuseppe Orsi and the former CEO of the firm Bruno Spagnolini on corruption charges in the sale of a dozen AgustaWestland helicopters to India for VVIP purposes.
Apart from filing a charge sheet, the ED has also attached assets worth Rs 11 crore belonging to the cousins of Tyagi and Italian national and alleged middleman in the case Christian Michel James.

The CBI, meanwhile, is getting the order of the Milan Court of Appeals translated from Italian to English even as it is yet to get a certified copy of the order for which it has made a request to the government.
Agency sources said they have got copy of the order informally which will be studied.