New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said India would go all out to extend help to the CBI in Argentina .
Mukherjee said the Indian High Commission is in touch with Argentinian officials to pursue the extradition of Bofors case accused Ottavio Quattrochi, an Italian national who was detained on the Febraury 6.
"We will follow the set Government rules and CBI has been entrusted with the responsibility (of extraditing Quattrocchi)," PTI quoted Mukherjee as saying. HE added that the extradition was "the main responsibility of the CBI".
While stating that presently, India does not have an extradition treaty with Argentina, Mukherjee added that the Indian Government has not yet talked to the Argentinian government on the extradition of Quattrocchi.
Quattrocchi allegedly got kickbacks from Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors in return fro contract to sell 155mm Howitzer guns to the Indian Army. He had left India in 1993 and has been pursued by the CBI since then.
The news of his detention has come as a shot in the arm for CBI, which drew flak in January last year after a British bank de-froze his bank account.
The bank action came after the agency failed to provide any evidence to the British Crown Prosecution Service, which had frozen his two bank accounts having three million pounds in July 2003.
Interpol had informed the CBI that the accounts were frozen after the Crown Prosecution Service of London obtained the restraining order against Quattrocchi for operation of the bank accounts.
The accounts were frozen after the CBI had claimed that Quattrocchi had received 712 million dollars from AB Bofors through AE Services, a UK-based company.
After receiving this money, Quattrocchi had been transferring the funds from one account to another and from one jurisdiction to another to avoid detection and evade the due process of law.
Quattrocchi has been missing since a Malaysian lower court had rejected the extradition request of India and allowed him to travel abroad in 2002.
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