Ridiculing the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) claim of sincere efforts to unearth the Bofors pay-off scam, the Swedish principal investigation officer said that the Indian investigating agency had been fooling people of its country. 

He alleged that it had neither properly sought cooperation nor cooperated.

Principal Investigator in Sweden Sten Lindstrom claimed that the Central Bureau of Investigation officials met him only once, that too for a mere 20 minutes in the last 20 years of investigation into the high profile defence scam.
He added that the agency had been asking the same questions over and over again.

“Yes, I have a feeling that was the case sometimes...,’’ he said when asked whether he thought the agency was fooling the people of India. He added that the Central Bureau of Investigation was apparently not interested in active investigation.

When queried on cooperation, he said, “We tried to cooperate, but we really didn’t get any answer.”
“It was puzzling because we had a feeling that this case went from one person to another. Almost everytime... it was answered by a different person. I never got in touch with one person whom I could phone or fax...,’’ said the Swedish officer in an interview to CNN-IBN news channel.

On the sincerity of the Central Bureau of Investigation in investigating the case, he said, “They had a copy of a newspaper which had published documents of the Swedish National Bank and they wanted to know if that was authentic. When we said we could show them originals, they said thank you and went.’’

Money to politicians
Confirming that money was paid in the Bofors deal, including some amounts to Indian political leaders, Mr Lindstrom said several persons and several organisations were paid, including Quattrocchi.

“I am convinced money from the gun deal went to Switzerland and was also disbursed to persons linked to the Gandhi family. I can’t see any other reason for Mr Quattrocchi  to receive money from Bofors.”

The Swedish investigator, however, conceded that there was no direct evidence against the Gandhi family.