Agusta deal: Have to protect Gandhis to save myself, says Christian Michel

New Delhi: Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the multi-crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal, said on Thursday  that he had not personally met either Congress president Sonia Gandhi or her son Rahul Gandhi.

“I have to protect the Gandhis to protect myself. I have to prove they are innocent to prove my innocence,” said Mr Michel in an interview to a TV news channel in Dubai.

Mr Michel confirmed that in 2008 he did describe Mrs Gandhi in a letter as “the driving force” behind the decision to acquire new helicopters for use by VVIPs when her party was in power.

He said that he did not personally know either Mrs Gandhi or Mr Rahul Gandhi, and stressed that his written suggestion that diplomats lobby with them did not mean that they had been bribed.

He said that he stood by his earlier claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year had met with his Italian counterpart in New York, and offered to release the two Italian marines imprisoned in India on murder charges in exchange for information on the Agusta deal that could embarrass or implicate Mrs Gandhi.

I ‘shook’ hands with Tyagi: Christian Michel

Mr Michel in an interview to another channel had said that he had never met Mrs Gandhi or former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to push for the purchase of the VVIP helicopters.

“No, never,” was the reply of Mr Michel when he was asked whether he had ever met Mrs Gandhi, Mr Singh or former defence minister A.K. Antony for pushing the deal.  Mr Michel is one of three alleged middlemen whom the Indian investigating agencies suspect to have brokered the deal in favour of AgustaWestland.  Both CBI and ED have notified Mr Michel under the Interpol Red Corner Notice.

“I probably met him (former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi) at the Gymkhana Club. But because of his association with Haschke I really avoided him,” he claimed.  Meanwhile, BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday continued his tirade against the Congress president. Addressing election rallies in Kerala, Mr Shah, in an apparent reference to Mrs Gandhi’s emotional speech during an earlier campaign speech in the state.