GENEVA: The CBI flurry of activity in Switzerland and Sweden has fed people to wonder whether the investigative agency is writing the epitaph of the Bofors investigation. On paper everything suggests that the agency is pursuing the case. It has just delivered a leters to Sweden depending on the investigations there (a decision on it is expected on next Friday and it has swung through Switzerland with the assurance that it is seriously pursuing the culprits. That is for the record.

In reality, the agency has let a haste of questions in its tail. Take for example its leter to the Swedish prosecutor general Thorsten Johnson. The reason he should reopen the case, the CBI tells him, is because Bofors is now state owned and employees can be compelled to speak. Secondly, the letter leaves the impression the careful analysis of the documents obtained from the Zurich court has thrown up new elements.

By the first, it is in fact asking the state of Sweden to begin an investigation against it self-the same sate that has played an active part in the cover up that began with it expunging crucial  details of illegal payments from ins own audit bureaus report in June 1987 and stretched beyond. Will a country that had even watered down its sift export credit rules to accommodate an arms deal.to copy with  the contract bloating costs now turn against itself the second suggestion the CBI LETTER that it may be in even more interesting. Why was this information rot brought up last year when the Swedes closed the case? The documents from the Zurich court were available with the Indian investigators at least three months before the Swedes took that decision, Why did the CBI has to wait till three weeks before the deadline in Sweden to make its request? And finally, why was this new information not shared with the Swiss authorities who could have used it in their dossier before the Geneva cantonal court?

The Swedish prosecutor’s decision may come tomorrow, but initial reactions suggest that the request may not go very far. “The fact that the company is now wholly state owned will not really make a difference here” press Ombudsmen and presently chief {judge at Stockholm district court.

“Knowledge of crimes such as bribes is in people’s heads and there is no that can force people to speak,.” It may be recalled that it was an insight that Dr. Cars wrote in a newspaper that finally pushed prosecutor Lars Ring berg to open a preliminary investigation on suspicion of bribes in August 1987.

In Switzerland the CBI official A.K. Malhotra had nothing substantive to say to the people in the Swill investigative process. Neither did he contact the Geneva based chartered accountant of AE. Service Miles B. Stott to question him about the recent developments. And then there are a series of questions about the CBIs lawyer in Stockholm Gunnar Berg himself whose appointment to defend the case has raised several eye brows. Berg was the lawyer for one Karl Erik Schmitz an agent who represented certain Iranian

Interact used by Bofors for its illegal was that the Bofors-Iran and Bofors-middle and Far East hearings were not complete before Berg was appointed to represent India leading many people to raise the obvious conflict of interest questions. Borg did not appeal against Ring bergs decision in any serious way last year and many people including Swedish journalist have noted his lack of mastery of the Indian dossier (Berg told some of them as recently as a fortnight ago that dig Madhavan removed from the case last October was still in charge in India).

People at least in Switzerland, have also noted that the profile officially lowered Earlier it   an died by a Dignow.as the going  gets tougher, Now Delhi sends  DSP who had to constantly call for instructions Meanwhile, some of the lawyers of the beneficiaries/beneficial owners of the accounts in the Geneva   court continuo pollute the . Initially they were Exiting the Government of India is seeking to withdraw the case but does not know how to do it. Now there is a slight change they    case will neither be withdrawn, nor will it be allowed to go forward, it will simply linger on till it becomes irrelevant. The ball is back in the CBIs court.

Article extracted from this publication >> March 20, 1992