AgustaWestland middleman Christian Michel takes names of Mrs Gandhi, 'son of Italian lady': ED to court

Christian Michel, the alleged middlemen in the AgustaWestland VVIP Chopper Scam, has named Mrs Gandhi, the Enforcement Directorate told the Patiala court on Saturday. According to the news agency ANI, the probe agency told the court that Michel also spoken about "the son of the Italian lady" and how he is going to become the "next prime minister of the country." The ED also said that Michel has identified how the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited was removed from the deal and the VVIP chopper deal was offered to Tata instead. The ED also sought to ban Michel's lawyer's access to him alleging he is being tutored from outside.

The ED told the court that, "We need to decipher who the "big man" referred to as "R" is in the communication between Christian Michel and other people. We need to confront Michel with other people to decipher who "the big man" or "R" is." However, Michel's lawyer Aljo K Joseph told the court: Michel Christian had a query regarding something and how legal response needs to be given. He tried to give us something, we didn't see what it was. It was immediately pointed out that he was slipping us a paper and paper was taken away." Also Read: 'Big man - R', 'son of Italian lady': Know what AgustaWestland middleman Christian Michel told ED in 5 points

The Patiala House Court listened to all the arguments and sent Michel to seven-day ED remand. However, the Congress countered the charges and said that there is pressure on Michel to name a particular family. Addressing the media, Congress leader RPN Singh asked "why is the chowkidaar trying to pressurise the government agencies to name a family? BJP scriptwriters are working overtime." Michel was extradited to India from Dubai on December 4. At that time, Congress had alleged that facing "imminent defeat" in state polls, Prime Minister Modi and the BJP government were seeking to "weave a web of lies" and construct a "mesh of deception to hoodwink" the people of India in the chopper case.

Michel was subjected to intense questioning after he reached India and slept barely for two hours. The 57-year old had an anxiety attack upon reaching the CBI headquarters in wee hours and doctors were called to attend to him. After giving him treatment, he was put to an intense grilling about money trail and identification of documents in the multi-crore rupee deal. He was allowed to sleep for two hours between 4 am and 6 am Wednesday before being provided with breakfast.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar slammed the Congress over Christian Michel's revelations. "Christian Michel spoke about 'son of Italian lady'. Revelations by the ED show that there is a 'son of Italian lady', 'big man' and 'R' involved. It points towards a family." He added, "The Congress government was a government of corruption that compromised with national security." 

(With PTI inputs)