A court in the Indian tax authorities said today that a bribe of 410 million rupees (around € 7 million) and 'was paid to the man of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi and another mediator in the supply of Indian Bofors guns in 1986. According to media reports in India, in a 98-page ruling, the judges acknowledged that at the time the government paid a premium for the supply of war over and that therefore the heirs of Quattrocchi and Win Chadd (who has since 'disappeared) must pay taxes on''commissions''pocketed.
reopens so 'the vexed question of the Bofors scandal that has dragged on for over 20 years of legal proceedings and international arrest warrants and that now threatens to cause a new imparazzo the government led by Congress party. Quattrocchi was in fact considered a personal friend of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his Italian wife Sonia, at the head of the historic party of the family.
A year ago, the story seemed to have reached a conclusion when the government decided to withdraw the complaint for alleged bribes paid by companies' Swedish Bofors Italian entrepreneur. On that occasion, the Attorney General of the State had informed the Supreme Court's efforts to obtain the extradition of the accused had failed. He fled India in 1993, twice the Indian government has attempted to obtain his extradition - the first from Malaysia, and Argentina - with no success.
The scandal was one of the most 'sensational in the modern history of India and in 1989 he lost the election to Congress after 40 years of continuous government. (ANSA).
