VVIP chopper deal: CBI Director meets Indian envoy in Italy

NEW DELHI: CBI Director Ranjeet Sinha has met Indian envoy in Italy in connection with its probe into alleged irregularities in Rs 3,600 crore rpt crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal.

Sinha, who was in Rome last week to attend a conference on human trafficking organised by London's Metropolitan Police, held a meeting with Basant Kumar Gupta, Indian Ambassador to Italy, and discussed ways to fastrack the agency probe in the deal, official sources said today.

The CBI Director pressed for early execution of the agency's judicial request (Letters Rogatory) to Italy seeking certain information on the accused and companies named in its FIR, they said. Both discussed ways and means for better coordination with the Italian authorities to secure crucial information sought by the agency in its judicial request, the sources said.

Former chief of Indian Air Force (IAF) S P Tyagi and about a dozen others have been named in the FIR registered by CBI on March 13, last year, to probe the deal.

Tyagi cousins - Sanjeev, alias Julie, Rajeev, alias Docsa, and Sandeep, European middlemen Carlo Gerosa, Christian Michel and Guido Haschke have also been named in the FIR as accused. The top executives of Italian firm Finmeccanica and its United Kingdom-based subsidiary AgustaWestland are facing trial in Italy for alleged corruption in supply of 12 VVIP helicopters to India.