Graft in Chopper deal |
An Italian court said there was "reasonable belief that corruption took place" in the 2010 VVIP helicopter deal and that former Indian Air Force chief SP Tyagi was involved.The court said it was "validly proven" that a part of $10-15 million in illicit funds made their way to Indian officials. The 225-page judgement by the Milan Court of Appeals has a separate 17-page chapter on Tyagi that explained the grounds on which it came to the conclusion on the corruption of the "Indian public officer"."The destination — at least partial — of the illicit funding to the payment of the price of corruption of Marshal Shashi Tyagi for his intervention in favour of AgustaWestland for the VVIP helicopters competition is validly proven," the court observed. On April 8, the Milan Court of Appeals — equivalent to an Indian high court — had ruled that the Rs 3,565-crore Agusta-Westland contract involved payoffs to Indian officials. Overturning a lower court judgement that said corruption could not be proved, the court of appeals found Giuseppe Orsi, the powerful former chief of Finmeccanica, and Bruno Spagnolini — who headed chopper division AgustaWestland — guilty of international corruption and money laundering.
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