india

Updated: Apr 04, 2019 15:00 IST

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday filed a supplementary chargesheet in Delhi’s Patiala House court against Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the in the Agusta Westland case .

David Syms, the partner of Christian Michel, has also been named as an accused. Some new individuals and firms have been named as accused in the chargesheet.

Michel was extradited by Dubai and arrested in December last year. His statement records were also submitted and mentioned in the supplementary chargesheet. The court will consider the matter on April 6.

It is alleged that bribes were paid to “middlemen”, perhaps even politicians, when India agreed to buy 12 AgustaWestland helicopters built by Italian defence manufacturing giant Finmeccanica (now known as the Leonardo group) at an estimated cost of Rs 3,600 crore.

Michel is among the three alleged middlemen being probed in the case by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The others are Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa.

The ED, which is probing this case along with the CBI, had filed a charge sheet against Michel in 2016 and had alleged that he received 30 million euros (about Rs 225 crore) from AgustaWestland which was nothing but “kickbacks” to execute the 12-helicopter deal in favour of the firm in “guise of” of genuine transactions for performing multiple work contracts in the country.

Under the now-scrapped deal with AugustaWestland, a subsidiary of Italian defence group Leonardo, formerly Finmeccanica, India agreed to buy 12 helicopters for ferrying VVIPs. The chopper deal was inked in February 2010 and scrapped four years later over allegations that bribes had exchanged hands.

The CBI has alleged there was an estimated loss of about Rs 2,666 crore to the exchequer in the deal that was signed on February 8, 2010 for the supply of VVIP choppers worth 556.262 million euros.