'Swedish Deep Throat' raises veil after twenty-five years

25 Apr 2012 Evaluate

Twenty-five years after jolting India and resulting in fall of then Congress government, today via a press release 'Swedish Deep Throat' has revealed his identity to the world. The former Swedish Police chief Sten Lindstrom has confessed to providing key leads to the Indian journalist Chitra Subramanian who broke the story then.

The whistleblower - Lindstrom has admitted that he had virtually no evidence to prove Rajiv Gandhi’s role in the scam and the main accused Ottavio Quattrocchi could have been easily prosecuted. By adding further he said that Bollywood superstar and a close friend of Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan and his family had no role in the scam and story was planted in Swedish newspaper by Indian investigators. “Bribes paid by Bofors landed in Quattrocchi's account which he subsequently cleaned out because India said there was no evidence linking him to the Bofors deal. Nobody in Sweden or Switzerland was allowed to interrogate him,” he added.

Bofors scandal is considered as one of the hefty scam seen by Indians till 1990s, it is scaled to whopping Rs 64 crore. This scandal involved many Indian biggies, the prominent were erstwhile Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then member of Parliament Amitabh Bachchan. Chitra Subramanian and N. Ram of the journalist of newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu broke the scam. This led to fall of Congress government in November 1989 general elections.

Although, cheating charges against former PM had been quashed in February 2004, the trial against other accused is still going on in the courts. The main accused in the case Ottavio Quattrocchi, the Italian business man presently resides in Argentina and in March 2011, Indian court has provided temporary relief lacking sufficient evidence against him.

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