The Hindu : National : Swamy demands high-level enquiry

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Sunday, Oct 30, 2005

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Swamy demands high-level enquiry

Special Correspondent

MADURAI: The Prime Minister should order a "high-level enquiry" into the revelations about "non-contractual beneficiaries" of India in the Volcker Committee report, which probed the Iraqi oil sales in 2001 under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme, the president of the Janata Party, Subramanian Swamy, said here on Saturday.

Addressing newspersons, Dr. Swamy said that he had written to the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, calling for an enquiry by a sitting Supreme Court Judge into the Indian payments.

To move Supreme Court

He pointed out that the Volcker Report had named the External Affairs Minister, K. Natwar Singh, the Congress party and some politicians and industrialists as "beneficiaries" of kickbacks.

While volunteering to provide "additional information," Dr. Swamy said he would approach the Supreme Court for a direction if the Government did not order an enquiry in 15 days.

He would also visit the U.N. headquarters by the end of November to get the "full document."

The Volcker report findings and allegations of payments from KGB had made the Congress party the "most saleable commodity" in India, he alleged.

Reacting to the Central Bureau of Investigation's move to approach the Interpol to get the extradition of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader V. Prabhakaran in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case,

Interpol initiative

Dr. Swamy said it was the latter which had decided to have him under a "special category" after the assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar.

The initiative to go after the LTTE leader came from the Interpol, he said.

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