Muttawakil gave CBI team some ‘dirt’ on Dawood

Muttawakil, sources said, has indicated that Dawood invested in several properties and factories in Afghanistan and confirmed that Dawood has a stake in poppy cultivation—then controlled by the Taliban.

The CBI was given access to Muttawakil on October 14 after the Ministry of External Affairs received reports that the former Taliban minister had been set free and was back in his own country.

A CBI team questioned Muttawakil in a Government building near Kabul with the help of an interpreter.

After making an assessment of Muttawakil’s testimony, the Government is likely to either make a request for Muttawakil to be questioned again or get him to come to India to face CBI interrogators.

With Afghanistan being war ravaged and with important evidence like airport communication tapes and telephone records (of calls made from Mumbai and Karachi to Afghanistan during the hijack) being destroyed, Muttawakil’s account becomes crucial for the CBI. He has, however, claimed that he doesn’t know how arms and ammunition were delivered to the hijackers in Kandahar or where did they go after they left Afghanistan. Although the CBI calls his 40-page interrogation report ‘‘actionable intelligence,’’ there is a hitch. Since he is a foreign national and his questioning was not done after execution of a Letter Rogatory (LR) or before the Afghan police, the CBI cannot present the testimony in the Patiala court where the hijack case is on.