India will not get last set of Bofors papers till year-end

The last set of secret bank documents on the alleged Rs 640 million payoffs in the Bofors gun deal is unlikely to be handed over to India before the year-end, Swiss police vice-chief Rudolf Wyss, who is in New Delhi in connection with the Interpol conference, said.

The Swiss authorities had, on the directive of the federal court in Geneva, initiated the process for an out-of-court settlement on the issue. Even if this comes about, the documents were likely to be passed on to India only by December.

Central Bureau of Investigation sources, however, said such a settlement was unlikely as the appellant, who had been opposing the handing over of the documents for several years, would not agree to such a proposition.

He would in all probability use the process only to further delay the transfer of the bank documents, they said.

The five sets of documents brought to India in January had shown Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi and his wife Maria, former Bofors agent Win Chadha, his late wife Kanta and son Harsh as the beneficiaries of the payoffs.

Wyss said the Swiss authorities were not concerned about the pace of the CBI investigations in the Bofors case and this would not come in the way of handing over the last set of documents.

UNI

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Bofors investigation grinds to a halt