Enforcement Director Sudheer Nath, leading a three-member team that includes a State Bank of India official, left for Jordan and Baghdad tonight to verify, among other details, a transfer of “several crores” from one bank account to another, both in Jordan. ED officials suspect that this account—details of which came with the Volcker papers to special envoy Virender Dayal—is linked to Hamdaan’s Andaleeb Sehgal. But Sehgal, at today’s interrogation, denied that he had anything to do with this account. As per the Volcker papers, Hamdaan paid Rs 3.3 crore as illegal surcharges into a Jordan bank. Meanwhile, Natwar’s close aide—now fallen out of favour—Aneil Mathrani who claimed that the former External Affairs Minister had given the “green signal” for the oil vouchers, told ED today that Natwar’s son Jagat Singh and Sehgal had gone to Iraq in 2001. He confirmed that they met then Iraqi Vice President Taha Ramadan in 2001 but the ED wants to cross-verify this with the Indian Embassy in Iraq. On his statement on oil coupons, Mathrani backtracked saying his statement was ‘‘twisted’’ but maintained that they could have received coupons from the Iraqi dictator. The former Ambassador to Croatia told the ED that Jagat and Andaleeb did not stay at Ba’ath Party’s official Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, thus virtually confirming that the duo were not part of the delegation. This morning Sehgal and Mathrani were confronted face-to-face at the Lok Nayak Bhawan by ED investigators and the two were shown their statements to bring out discrepancies. Sehgal, investigators confirm, refused to comment on Jagat Singh. Asked about air-tickets to Jordan and hotel bills, Sehgal said that he paid for his trip. On his frequent visits to Jordan, Sehgal said he had gone to visit relatives and added that Jagat Singh’s relatives were also staying in Jordan at that time. This leaves ED little option but to summon Jagat Singh after the team comes back from Iraq. Already, the ED has sounded the government that Jagat Singh needs to be interrogated as he has a lot to answer for on the basis of 640 pages of documents obtained by Dayal from New York.
