Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

Two top execs acquitted by Italian court in Agusta case

- PTI & HT Correspond­ent letters@hindustant­imes.com ▪

MILAN/NEW DELHI: An Italian appeals court on Monday acquitted two former top bosses of Italian defence and aerospace giant Leonardo over corruption charges in the now-scrapped deal for selling 12 Agusta-Westland helicopter­s to the Indian government for ~3,600 crore.

Milan’s third court of appeal acquitted Giuseppe Orsi, the former president of the company earlier known as Finmeccani­ca, and Bruno Spagnolini, the former CEO of its British subsidiary Agusta-Westland, PTI said quoting Italian news agency ANSA.

The Central Bureau of Investigat­ion (CBI), however, said their acquittal will not affect the agency’s independen­t probe into allegation­s that Leonardo paid more than ~360 crores as bribe to Indian officials to secure the contract. Orsi was arrested in 2014 and resigned as chief executive of Finmeccani­ca, which was later renamed as Leonardo.

While Orsi was given a jail term of four-and-a-half-years, Spagnolini was jailed for four years on the same charges.

Orsi was at the helm of AgustaWest­land when the deal was struck and was suspected of involvemen­t in the payment of bribes. Both were cleared on charges of committing internatio­nal corruption at the first-instance trial in 2014 but convicted of false invoicing. In India, the CBI last year charged former Indian Air Force (IAF) chief SP Tyagi in a Delhi court along with nine others for bribery in the case. “We have had a completely different probe. We have very strong case,” CBI spokespers­on Abhishek Dayal said in Delhi on Monday. Another CBI official said the agency had “conducted an independen­t investigat­ion into the case” and added that the “prosecutio­n have the option to file an appeal against the judgment”. The contract was scrapped by the previous UPA government in 2014.

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