AERIAL VIEW…
While Churchill may or may not have taken the bribe, it is for the judiciary to decide; he was surely a victim of dirty politics, while Digambar Kamat benefited from “friendship” with the former CM.
While that was the matter of 2015, what is new in the case is that the United States Justice Department has said that the Indian authorities have withdrawn the request to interview, according to notings in their files.
Well, well, well….this is more shocking than anything else. The Enforcement Directorate, a central agency investing the money laundering angle in the case, has told the US Justice Department that it has never withdrawn the request. So whodunnit?
If there are only notings in the files and no formal withdrawal request have been made, then it has to be some highly ranked politician or bureaucrat who must have verbally made the request to the US. Isn’t it?
SURAJ NANDREKAR
Editor, Goemkarponn
It is no secret that it was the “fixing” between former chief minister Manohar Parrikar and the Digambar Kamat that helped the latter escape jail while another accused, Churchill Alemao, spent 90-nights in jail Jail.
It was quite evident from the fact that Churchill’s bail in the same case and exact charges was rejected twice, but the anticipatory bail of Digambar Kamat was accepted.
While Churchill may or may not have taken the bribe, it is for the judiciary to decide; he was surely a victim of dirty politics, while Digambar Kamat benefited from “friendship” with the former CM.
While that was the matter of 2015, what is new in the case is that the United States Justice Department has said that the Indian authorities have withdrawn the request to interview, according to notings in their files.
Well, well, well….this is more shocking than anything else. The Enforcement Directorate, a central agency investing the money laundering angle in the case, has told the US Justice Department that it has never withdrawn the request. So whodunnit?
If there are only notings in the files and no formal withdrawal request have been made, then it has to be some highly ranked politician or bureaucrat who must have verbally made the request to the US. Isn’t it?
Secondly, the critical evidence sent by the United States Justice Department to the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, on October 13, 2021, through the US Embassy in India has gone missing.
Neither the Enforcement Directorate nor the Goa Police Crime Branch has received the evidence. So, where has the evidence gone? How has it not reached the investigating agencies for almost four months now? Was it a deliberate attempt to save someone? Or does the “fixing” from Parrikar time still continues even today?
One must understand that whenever a country like the United States sends some correspondence or dossier, it isn’t sent by post; it is sent through that country’s Embassy in India, which physically hands it over to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The MEA then decides where to send the parcel or the correspondence.
So, who is saving the culprits in the Louis Berger scam? Where have the packets containing the evidence gone?
The evidence is crucial for investigating agencies as James McClung confessed to bribing officials and politicians in India to get contracts for Louis Berger Inc.
McClung was one of the two former executives of Louis Berger International (LBI), a New Jersey-based construction management company, who were sentenced in connection with a long-running bribery scheme to secure government construction management contracts by bribing officials in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Kuwait.
From 1998 through 2010, LBI and its employees, including Hirsch and McClung, orchestrated $3.9 million in bribe payments to foreign officials in various countries in order to secure government contracts. To conceal the payments, the conspirators made payments under the guise of “commitment fees,” “counterpart per diems” and other payments to third-party vendors. In reality, the payments were intended to fund bribes to foreign officials who had awarded contracts to LBI or who supervised LBI’s work on contracts, the defendants admitted in US court.
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