The Hindu : Was Quattrocchi an accused?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 10, 2002

International

International

Was Quattrocchi an accused?

By P. S. Suryanarayana

KUALA LUMPUR Dec. 9. The judicial hearings in the Quattrocchi extradition case today reached a delicate stage in the Malaysian High Court in Kuala Lumpur. The Judge, Augustine Paul, said the critical question to be determined was whether the Italian businessman, Ottavio Quattrocchi, wanted in India in connection with the Bofors payoff investigations and trial, was at all an accused person under the relevant laws. This ``narrowing'' of the judicial focus marked a subtle reformulation of the basic riddle about the existence or absence of a formal charge, in law and on facts, against Mr. Quattrocchi.

After a day-long session, which was punctuated by short adjournments, the Judge ruled that the Malaysian Government's prosecutors, who represented India in the absence of a bilateral extradition treaty, and the Italian national's counsel should adduce arguments in this regard during tomorrow's hearings so that the stage could be set for a definitive judicial decision. Both sides later indicated outside the court that the question of keeping the issue alive even after such a decision might belong to a grey area of the law. Today, the hearings meandered along the beaten track of whether or not there should have been a plenary charge against Mr. Quattrocchi, the respondent in this ``review'' petition that was filed on behalf of India against a lower court's rejection of the extradition application itself at the stage of ``preliminary objections''. Justice Paul remarked that he could ``not see a single point of law'' in the prosecution's ``review'' application which read ``like a petition of appeal''.

It was then that Justice Paul reacted to the prosecution's apparent sense of frustration that the case was acquiring broadband proportions that included an intrusive examination of the ``correctness'' of the Indian legal actions in the Bofors case. He asked the Deputy Public Prosecutor, Kamrulhisham Kamaruddin, to give a considered response to the question whether the hearings should be restricted to determining if a charge existed to justify the extradition of the respondent.

Upon a brief adjournment thereafter, the prosecution, which was today bolstered by the presence of Cyrus Das who had earlier argued the case at the lower judicial echelon, submitted that a narrowing of the focus to just the detection of a formal charge was not acceptable. It was at this juncture that Justice Paul said that the question to be sorted out was whether Mr. Quattrocchi was an ``accused person''.

Justice Paul said that the relevant point to be argued upon was whether the Indian Special Judge dealing with this case had merely spoken of the existence of prima facie evidence against Mr. Quattrocchi or whether the respondent in the present extradition case was indeed subjected to a test of legal ``cognisance'' and categorised accordingly. At the prosecution's suggestion, Justice Paul agreed to retain the focus on the allegations, too, about cheating and conspiracy by the respondent. Earlier, Justice Paul asked the prosecution to identify the Malaysian laws with provisions ``equivalent'' to those under India's anti-corruption enactments. These arguments were a sequel to the hearings on a previous day about ``double criminality'' or the similarity of offences in both India and Malaysia.

Mr. Quattrocchi's counsel, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, argued that ``the substance is all wrong'' insofar as the issuance of a warrant against the respondent in this extradition case was concerned. Mr. Shafee drew attention to the standards of legality of the charges as contained in a western case study that Justice Paul himself had alluded to. Later, speaking outside the court chamber, Mr. Shafee praised Justice Paul as a ``very interactive judge'', while Mr. Kamaruddin expressed the hope that the new direction that the hearings had now taken might help ``clarify (the) accusations'' relevant to this case.

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