Bofors 'Deep Throat' reveals all: How Rajiv protected Quattrocchi

In April 1987, a secret Swedish source leaked nearly 350 documents to Indian journalist Chitra Subramaniam-Duella. The resulting media expose – based on minutes of meetings, private notes, bank instructions, contracts, and a diary – became the biggest political scandal in modern Indian history, bringing down the Rajiv Gandhi government. On its 25th anniversary, the Swedish Deep Throat has revealed himself to the Indian media blog, The Hoot.org, in an explosive interview with none other than Subramaniam-Duella. He is Sten Lindstrom, the former head of Swedish police, who led the investigation into the Bofors-India gun deal. [ Read the interview here] [caption id=“attachment_286811” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Deep Throat reveals that Rajiv Gandhi did not personally take a bribe but allowed a massive cover-up aimed to protecting Ottavio Quattrocchi. KM Kishan/Reuters”]  [/caption] So what does he have to say? For one, Rajiv Gandhi did not personally take a bribe but allowed a massive cover-up aimed to protecting Ottavio Quattrocchi:

There was no evidence that he (Rajiv Gandhi) had received any bribe. But he watched the massive cover-up in India and Sweden and did nothing. Many Indian institutions were tarred, innocent people were punished while the guilty got away. The evidence against Ottavio Quattrocchi was conclusive. Through a front company called A.E. Services, bribes paid by Bofors landed in Quattrocchi’s account which he subsequently cleaned out because India said there was no evidence linking him to the Bofors deal. Nobody in Sweden or Switzerland was allowed to interrogate him.

And in the pecking order of protection, Quattrocchi merited greater protection than even Rajiv Gandhi’s relative Arun Nehru: “He [Managing Director of Bofors Martin Ardbo] had written in his notes that the identity of N (Nehru) becoming public was a minor concern but at no cost could the identity of Q (Quattrocchi) be revealed because of his closeness to R (Rajiv Gandhi). " The Quattrocchi-Gandhi link is also up-front and centre: “[Ardbo] had also mentioned a meeting between an A.E. Services official and a Gandhi trustee lawyer in Geneva. This was a political payment. These payments are made when the deal has to be inked and all the numbers are on the table.” A.E. Services was a front company used to facilitate the transfer of money from Bofors to Quattrocchi. So determined was the Indian government to cover up the scandal that when Bofors officials arrived in India with a list of names, “nobody of any consequence received them.” And yet even the VP Singh administration, which was voted to power in late 1989 on an anti-corruption platform, does not come out looking any better. According to Lindstrom, only one team of Indian investigators met with the Swedish team even after VP Singh took power, and their primary aim was to force him to link the Bachchans to the kickbacks. When he refused to do so, they planted a story in a leading Swedish newspaper instead – for which the paper was successfully sued by the Bachchans. In fact, Rajiv’s fall from power did little to improve the efforts of Indian investigative agencies:

Whenever the public prosecutor Ekblom and I heard of any Indian visits to Stockholm, we would speak to the media expressing our desire to meet them. Can you imagine a situation where no one from India met the real investigators of the gun deal? That was when we saw the extent to which everyone was compromised. Many politicians who had come to my office claiming they would move heaven and earth to get at the truth if they came to power, fell silent when they held very important positions directly linked to the deal.

Lindstrom’s lesson in Indian politics rings truer than ever 25 years later. Read his interview in its entirety on The Hoot website.