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Malaysian court to consider India's extradition request next month |
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December 21, 2000
KUALA LUMPUR--(UNB/AP) - A Malaysian judge on Wednesday said he would decide next month whether to hear an inquiry on India's request for the extradition of an Italian weapons dealer in a 15-year-old bribery case. Sessions Court Judge Akhtar Tahir ordered businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi to surrender his passport pending a court hearing on Jan. 22, the national Bernama news agency reported. Quattrocchi, who has lived in Malaysia for nearly seven years, was allowed to remain free on bail totaling 400,000 ringgit (dlrs 105,263). Government prosecutor Siti Zainab Omar said the inquiry was meant to determine whether the extradition request by the Indian government was "valid and lawfully satisfactory." Indian investigators have filed charges against Quattrocchi and Martin Ardbo, former managing director of the Swedish arms maker, AB Bofors, for allegedly paying kickbacks to the Indian army on the purchase of 400 Swedish artillery guns. If convicted, they face up to seven years in prison. Both Quattrocchi, a former family friend of Gandhi, and Ardbo have denied the charges against them. Ardbo is believed to be living in Sweden. The case is part of a 1986 scandal over the dlrs 1.4 billion sale of Swedish-made howitzers which stirred a political storm in India and is believed to have brought down the government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. On Wednesday, India's Central Bureau of Investigation said it hoped Quattrocchi's extradition would "come sooner than later." "We will press for his extradition," R.K. Raghavan, director of the CBI, said in New Delhi. "We knew he was there and traveling in and out of Malaysia. We were just hoping he would not do the vanishing act." Officials have twice visited Kuala Lumpur, the capital, to discuss the extradition. India and Malaysia do not have an extradition treaty.
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