India’s Congress slammed over fugitive Italian

INDIA: Raucous opposition MPs disrupted India’s parliament accusing the ruling Congress of trying to avoid extraditing an Italian businessman wanted in an arms scandal and known to be a friend of party chief Sonia Gandhi.

Ottavio Quattrocchi, a key accused in the Bofors gun bribery scandal, has been wanted in India for questioning for years and was held at an Argentine airport on Feb. 6 under an Interpol arrest warrant.

It took more than two weeks for the news to be made public, and that too through a government leak, sparking allegations that the Congress-led coalition was hiding it to allow the one-month deadline to seek Quattrocchi’s extradition to pass.

On Monday, opposition lawmakers forced both houses of parliament to be adjourned briefly as they accused the government of a cover-up.

“Sonia Gandhi is a thief, Congress party is a thief,” opposition lawmakers shouted.

Quattrocchi is accused of receiving $7 million in bribes as a middleman in the $1.2 billion purchase of artillery from Swedish arms maker Bofors AB in 1986 for the Indian army.

New Delhi, Tuesday, Reuters