New Delhi, February 15, 2013 – The AgustaWestland AW101 VVIP helicopter deal is not the only one in which Italy’s Finmeccanica allegedly bribed Indian officials to clear it. The testimony of the prime middlemen involved in the Rs.3,546-crore deal shows that they also tried to “influence” senior army officers in a separate chopper deal meant for the Army.
Listed in the trial report as “highly confidential” and under the subject – “start of the tests/trials”, it clearly names two Indian army officers of the rank of Brigadier and Colonel as “key persons to help clear the competition” in the trial test of that particular chopper deal.
The trial report on page no. 51 noted, “Indian Army Col. Siddhu was the man who turned the tide of the tests and made it in favour of France… He was obviously their man. Now he (Col. Siddhu) was replaced by one Brigadier Saini, who will lead the group (team) of the tests/trials.”
The test team for trials led by Brig. Saini comprised of three pilots from the army and two pilots from the air force, besides an engineer each from both forces. “He (Brig. Saini) has made contact and offered his services in order to help eliminate the competition on technical points.”
The testimony points out that the middlemen working on behalf of AgustaWestlandwere also briefed by Brig. Saini about Russians as competitors also in the army chopper deal. But they were lucky to get some inside information about the “weak links” of other players competing in the deal. It is not clear if the person giving the information was Brig. Saini, but the report says that there was a meeting in Bangalore which provided the vital clues.
The Bangalore meeting listed as “Orientation II” in the report says, “It has provided the following information: 1) Kamov is not responding as desired on the issue of AC and failure to meet the required speed of 220 miles as against 210 mph by them. 2) In Eurocopter, there is no night vision and voice recorder. In addition, in a previous test they had trouble starting a cold engine. These features were hidden in a previous round…”
