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Quattrocchi was paid Bofors money, asserts Advani

Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani today said evidence produced in court in Switzerland in the Bofors case had clearly revealed that Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, a family friend of Sonia Gandhi, had received commissions to secure the order for the Swedish arms manufacturer.

Advani told reporters in Bangalore that Gandhi had last week claimed that there was no paper showing Quattrocchi's involvement in the deal.

He said that not just the special judge looking into the Bofors affair, not just the Delhi high court, but the judgment of the highest court of Switzerland had clearly stated that evidence established Quattrocchi's involvement in receiving commissions in the howitzer deal.

The Swiss court had even specified the French companies that Quattrocchi had set up to receive and launder the money, Advani said.

The monies that were transferred, the dates on which they were transferred, the accounts into which they were transferred, all have been explicitly stated by the Swiss court, he said.

The court had also explicitly stated that these accounts could be operated only by Quattrocchi or his wife, and that each belonged to a company owned entirely by him.

The home minister said that after these documents were released to the national media by the Bharatiya Janata Party, there was sudden silence from Gandhi.

"This is but a continuation of the pattern. It is the very party led by this very president which told a blatant falsehood to the President of India, when it told him that it had the support of 272 MPs," Advani added.

He said the people have before them the established document of Vajpayee and his government in steering India through such a difficult period. On the other hand, they have the established record of the Congress and its president -- a record of heckling and falsehood.

"I have not the slightest doubt about the choice that our people will make," he said.

UNI

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