The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday claimed that Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, has named Congress’s Sonia Gandhi while in custody.
The ED counsel said this in the Patiala House Court today while seeking Michel’s custody for eight days. The counsel claimed that during interrogation, Michel revealed Mrs Gandhi’s name. However, the counsel did not elaborate what was the context in which Mrs Gandhi was named.
The Enforcement Directorate lawyer also told the court that Michel spoke about “the son of the Italian lady” and how he is going to become “the next prime minister of the country”.
The counsel also claimed that Michel has identified how HAL was removed from the deal and it was offered to Tata instead. The ED also sought to bar Michel’s lawyer from meeting him, alleging he is being “tutored from outside”.
According to the ED, when Michel’s advocate met him day before yesterday in th evening, he passed on a chit of paper informing him about the said interrogation.
“We don’t dispute that he [Christian Michel] handed us the paper, but it’s the fault of the ED that they allowed it to happen,” Michel’s lawyer Aljo K Joseph told the court.
Christian Michel, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate after he was extradited from the UAE earlier this month, was produced in Delhi’s Patiala House Court after seven days in the probe agency’s custody.
Michel was sent to ED custody for seven days by the court.
Congress reaction
Meanwhile, calling it a political vendetta, Congress’s RPN Singh said there is pressure on Michel to name a particular family. “Why is the chowkidaar trying to pressurise government agencies to name a family? The BJP script writers are working overtime,” he said.
On Friday, India Today broke the story how Michel used Congress party elites to put pressure on then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was revealed in the the letter by Michel that he wrote on August 28, 2009, to the CEO of AgustaWestland Giuseppe Orsi.
India Today has accessed the copy of the letter, which reveals that the middleman had access to the PMO, details of PM Manmohan Singh’s meetings regarding the chopper deal and his plans, senior ministers of party, bureaucrats and the defence ministry.