Former Defense Minister George Fernandes in Israel arms deal probe
Dated 10/10/2006
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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Tuesday they were investigating the role of a former defence minister George Fernandes and a retired navy chief in a bribery case related to a multi-million-dollar deal in 2000 to buy missiles from Israel.
The CBI said Fernandes and then navy chief Admiral Sushil Kumar were influenced by middlemen to push the deal, overruling objections by the state-run defence agency.
Fernandes and Kumar rejected the allegations.
India and state-run Israel Aircraft Industries signed a $269 million deal to supply the Indian navy with Barak missiles to protect its warships as part of New Delhi's efforts to modernise its army.
The deal was among 48 cases referred by the defence ministry to the CBI in 2004 and 2005 as it suspected irregularities in some of them and that commissions were paid to middlemen, the investigating agency said in a statement.
Bribes were also paid to the defence minister's political party, it said.
The state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation's opinion against the missiles "was overruled by the then RM at the behest of the middleman/agent", the CBI said, referring to Fernandes as the Raksha Mantri (RM).
"The then Chief of Naval Staff colluded with other accused persons and put up a note directly to RM to import six Barak systems, misrepresenting facts," it said.
Fernandes rejected the allegations, calling them "rubbish".
"The missile had been selected before I went into the ministry. It was already there. Thereafter the navy insisted that they needed it," the former minister told reporters.
"If the navy wanted something, it was my duty to see that they got it."
Former navy chief Kumar also denied any wrongdoing.
"I am shocked and surprised. The missile defence system project was with the navy for years before I took over as chief," Kumar told Reuters.
Fernandes was hit by an arms scandal in 2001 when a news Web site released video tapes showing a string of officials apparently taking cash from journalists posing as arms dealers.
That scandal forced Fernandes to quit as minister but he returned to his post seven months later in the middle of an investigation into the scandal. He was later cleared of any wrongdoing.
