VVIP choppers case: Dubai court orders Christian Michel's extradition

NEW DELHI: In a big boost for India’s investigative agencies, a Dubai court has rejected the final appeal against extradition by alleged middleman Christian Michel who is suspected to be central to political payoffs in the $556-million Agusta-Westland VVIP chopper case.
According to sources, the middleman, who has had a long history in India since 1990s, could be extradited within a ‘matter of days’. The final orders have yet to be issued by the UAE government after the courts rejected all appeals.

Michel, who is a British citizen, is currently in prison and his travel documents have been seized pending his transfer. The extradition plea had been filed by India through an Interpol notice after investigations here pointed to his key involvement in routing payments to officials and politicians for the VVIP chopper deal. The key middleman is believed to have been paid $48.6 million by the Italian company for contracts in India.

Links with Top Politicians Probed
Efforts to extradite him had gained little progress since the investigations started in 2013. Michel was probed by agencies on suspicions of having connections with the top Indian politicians which was consistently denied by him.

While documentation on his role in India was also received from Italy where the VVIP chopper case was first investigated, the final nail in the coffin seems to have been a set of five ‘consultancy agreements’ for bogus deals with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Navy and Pawan Hans that strengthened the Indian case.

As reported by ET, these include a pact dated December 2010, after the Indian VVIP chopper deal was finalised, to provide services to HAL on behalf of Westland Helicopters. Another was dated February 2003 for which Michel’s company Global Services FZE was paid $8.13 million till July 2012. The third, for $10.38 million, was to recover Sea King Helicopters (which are operated by the Indian Navy) that was signed in November 2006.

The CBI has also accused Michel of procuring secret documents from the ministry of defence when the selection process for the VVIP deal was on, including an evaluation of the S 92 helicopter, which was the only competitor for the contract.

The man at the heart of the AgustaWestland chopper scam has a long India history — from admitting to being a commission agent for the purchase of French Mirage jets to a series of contracts he had with Italian arms firm that paid him $48.6 million for ‘work’. Michel, whose father too was active in the Indian arms market in the 1970s and 80s, is believed to have started work here in the late 1990s, when he obtained an agreement with French firm Dassault for a commission to sell Mirage fighter jets to the Indian Air Force.