CBI gets NBW against 'Q', 3-member team leaves for Argentina tonight
New Delhi, Feb 27 (UNI) A three-member Indian 'delegation' is leaving tonight for Argentina to 'get' Bofors accused Ottavio Quattrocchi to face trial in India, even as the CBI obtained a non-bailable warrant against the Italian businessman from a local court here.
Today's step to advance its departure by a day takes place after the CBI faced severe criticism over its 'disclosure' yesterday that Quattrocchi had been released on conditional bail on February 23 itself -- the day the central agency disclosed to the nation that the fugitive had been detained in Argentina on February 6.
The 'delegation' comprises of a two-member team of the CBI -- which includes a legal expert and a Superintendent or a Deputy Inspector General rank officer, according to CBI officials.
''A third member, in all likelihood, from the Ministry of External Affairs would accompany them.'' MEA sources, later confirmed that an official of the Consular Passport and Visa (CPV) division was leaving with the CBI team.
The team, leaving tonight and reaching Buenos Aires on March 2, would carry along with it the chargesheet against Quattrocchi, deportation documents -- nearly 350 pages translated in Spanish, and the non-bailable warrant issued by a Delhi court against the accused, said the officials.
''The documents being sent from here also comprise of papers pertaining to the registration of the first case against Quattrocchi in 1996 along with the investigation reports related to it.'' The team would assist the local law firm hired by the Indian embassy there which was taking up the case of Quattrocchi's extradition to India, they added.
Meanwhile, legal experts and sources while questioning the 'validity' of the non-bailable warrant issued here said it would stand nowhere in the Argentine court.
''The validity of the NBW was justified only when the person is an Indian or an Indian passport holder.'' For the arrest warrant against Quattrocchi, the Indian government would have to take the permission of the government of Italy, permission for which was highly unlikely, they added.
The CBI had secured an 'open NBW' against Quattrocchi on February 23 from the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Seema Maini here.
The 'open NBW' was necessary to initiate and ease extradition proceedings against the accused in the Bofors pay-off scam.
Quattrocchi, who was detained on February 6 under an Interpol 'red corner notice' at Iguazu International Airport in the Argentinian province of Misiones on way to Buenos Aires, and taken into preventive custody, was released on bail on February 23 after the CBI could not specify charges against him.
UNI