New Delhi: A CBI team landed in Argentinean capital Buenos Aires on Thursday to seek the extradition of Ottavio Quattrocchi, the key suspect in the Bofors case, who has been held up in the country on the basis of an Interpol red-corner notice.
Quattrocchi was arrested by Argentinean police on February 6 and was subsequently released on bail on February 23. But his passport has been impounded and he has been barred from leaving the country until the case is decided.
CBI Director of Prosecution S K Sharma and Superintendent of Police Keshav Mishra have gone there with a set of voluminous documents which will be presented to the Argentinian foreign office, most likely on Friday, in support of India's request to extradite 69-year-old Quattrocchi.
Sharma told PTI in Buenos Aires that the team is hopeful of getting the businessman extradited. Quattrocchi's lawyers in Argentina have, however, claimed on Thursday that India had no case to get the Italian businessman extradited.
Quattrocchi, who left India in 1993 and has been sought ever since by the Indian courts and CBI. A PTI report quoted India's Ambassador to Argentina, Parmathesh Rath, as saying that the legal department in the foreign office would first verify whether CBI had followed the correct procedure in preparing the extradition papers.
Thereafter, the papers would be forwarded to a court, he said. Presenting the investigation documents, which have been translated into Spanish, is the first step in the attempt to secure Quattrocchi's extradition.
Rath said the communication with the Foreign Office is likely to take about a day due to the procedures involved. He was not sure as to how long the CBI team would be in Argentina.
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