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Argentina's questions answered

Vaiju Naravane

Paris: The Argentine foreign office on Tuesday confirmed that the extradition papers filed by the CBI have been forwarded to the court in El Dorado, the city in the northern Missiones province where Ottavio Quattrocchi, the prime accused in the Bofors kickbacks case, was first arrested.

The two-member CBI team led by Chief Prosecutor S.K. Sharma is expected to travel to Missiones on Wednesday, it is reliably learnt. They have been in touch with the new court-appointed lawyer, English-speaking Lillian Delgado, although they have yet to share the case papers with her.

The papers were sent by special courier last Friday and should be with the court either on Tuesday or Wednesday. The entire responsibility for safeguarding the papers lies with the federal police (Polizia Federal) and not with Interpol as previously reported.

Earlier, there was confusion when sources close to the court said the Indian case was "incomplete." When contacted, India's Ambassador to Argentina Pramatesh Rath confirmed that the Foreign Ministry had "sought clarifications."

But these, he said, had to do with "points of Indian law. Their questions have been satisfactorily answered and we have been told that the papers have been sent to the court in El Dorado," Mr. Rath told The Hindu .

Mario Hachiro-Doi, the judge who will be dealing with the case, will now have 15 days to begin hearing the extradition request.

When contacted, Mr. Quattrocchi's lawyer Alejandro Freeland said he had yet to "receive any official confirmation that the case had been transferred" to the court in El Dorado.

Italian officials were instrumental in securing bail for Mr. Quattrocchi, with Italy's Ambassador to Argentina Stefano Ronca writing to the Appellate Court in Posadas vouchsafing that the accused would not flee the country if released. The Italian Foreign Ministry told The Hindu that "Mr. Quattrocchi is an Italian citizen. Ambassador Ronco did for him what any Ambassador would do for a citizen of his country. Now things will proceed along legal lines."

Scepticism

Mr. Quattrochi's lawyer however remained sceptical about Indian claims that the case had been accepted. In a telephone interview, Mr. Freeland told The Hindu that the CBI may have failed to reveal "the true picture to the Argentine authorities." Mr. Freeland said the CBI had probably not mentioned the two Delhi High Court verdicts releasing Mr. Quottrocchi. "The `Bofors case is based on lies and does not exist," he said. He said his client would most likely sue Interpol for arresting him on "false and baseless charges."

Mr. Freeland said he had taken on Mr. Quattrocchi's case after members of the latter's family contacted him. "The petition will be rejected once the court has access to the history of the case. Everything about this case is strange. The way he was arrested, the way he is being persecuted even after several verdicts clearing him. There is no logic to this at all. It seems surreal," Mr. Freeland told The Hindu .

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