Bofors scam accused Quattrocchi dead

Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, 74, died of a heart attack on Friday, his family confirmed on Saturday. The family also confirmed that Quattrocchi died of a cardiac arrest in Milan. His funeral will take place on Monday, a member of the family told a media agency. Quattrocchi, once considered a close friend of the Gandhi family during his days in India as the representative of an Italian firm, was allegedly one of the major players in the Bofors gun scandal.

The CBI had been trying to extradite Quattrocchi to India but it lost two extradition appeals, first in Malaysia in 2002, and then in Argentina in 2007. In 1986, Swiss arms manufacturer Bofors landed a $15 billion (Rs 1,500 crore) contract to supply Howitzer guns to India. Quattorchi, once considered a friend of the Gandhi family, allegedly served as the middleman in a deal that saw massive kickbacks allegedly paid by the company to Indian politicians and defence officials.

After Swiss media began reporting a year later that the company had paid massive kickbacks, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assured Parliament that was not the case. However, the Bofors scandal cost him the general election in 1989. In 1990, when the BJP-led NDA was in power, the CBI filed a complaint in the case. The charges against him included serving as a conduit for bribes. Others named in the CBI case included Mr Quattrocchi's wife, Maria, and Win Chadha, who was Bofors' representative in India. Chadha died in 2001.

Quattrochi left India in 1993 to avoid being arrested. In March 2011, a Delhi court allowed the CBI to close its criminal case against him after the investigating agency submitted that it had not been able to get Quattrocchi extradited to India. An application for withdrawal of the case agains Quattrocchi was filed by the public prosecutor on October 03, 2009.

Defence minister AK Antony recently said the government did not plan to launch any fresh probe into the Bofors scandal and that Quattrocchi stood "discharged" as he could not be extradited even after 20 years of registration of the case. Quattrocchi, born in Mascali, province of Catania, Sicily, is reported to have arrived in India in the mid-1960s as the representative of Italian oil and gas firm Eni and its engineering arm Snamprogetti.