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Journalism of Courage
There is nothing to beat the Bofors case for bizarre twists and turns. Now come farcical revelations from the Hindujas. On the face of it, the Hindujas have taken an extraordinarily long time to clarify that the payments they received from Bofors in 1986 were not related to the 155 m howitzer deal with India. It is the classic defence. Only, why take so long over it? Had they but said this at the start of the Indian investigations, they would not have had the finger of suspicion pointed at them for the last ten years. Reams have been written about the Hindujas in connection with the Bofors payoffs scandal. How simple it would have been to quieten all the speculation by telling the 8220;truth8221; then. Surely the evidence produced today before a Swiss investigating judge showing they were paid for other services could have been produced years ago. It would have been a credible claim then. After all, the Hindujas were known to be arms dealers and presumably would have had various kinds of dealings with Bofors andother armament manufacturers for which they would be paid commissions. Today, however, their claim lacks credibility.
A straightforward statement ten years ago might have spared this well-connected business family a great deal of public embarrassment. Insteadtheir lawyers issued bland denials as one detail after another of the Hinduja connection was uncovered by investigative journalists. They made Indian and Swiss investigators jump through many hoops before coming out with their version of the 8220;facts8221;. There has to be some explanation for why they fought the transfer of Swiss documents to India all the way through the Swiss legal system even going as far as preferring an appeal to the Swiss federal councillor. The established facts are: Bofors paid 80 million Swedish kroner in installments between May and December 1986 into Swiss bank accounts 8212; Tulip, Lotus and Mont Blanc 8212; in the name of McIntyre Corporation, a company registered in Panama and owned by the Hindujas. The payments started two months after the howitzer contract was signed by the Rajiv Gandhi government. In the end, the timing may be explained away as coincidence, the secret bank accounts and front companies as normal practice for international arms dealers. However, the Hindujas can besure they do not come out of this affair smelling of roses.
