The Untold Story of Christian Michel and AugustaWestland

By Raju Santhanam

A veteran journalist, Raju Santhanam has spent over forty years in journalism in print and television. A former head of Zee News and editor of the Statesman, Raju’s forte has been investigative journalism. He ran the Statesman’s Insight Investigative team for a number of years, and was well known for some of the best investigative stories in the eighties and subsequent years. Currently, Raju is focused on research-based projects that have a global impact on international audience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roli Books
• Release date: May 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9788194110965

Book preview

A veteran journalist, Raju Santhanam has spent over forty years in journalism in print and television. A former head of Zee News and editor of the Statesman, Raju’s forte has been investigative journalism. He ran the Statesman’s Insight Investigative team for a number of years, and was well known for some of the best investigative stories in the eighties and subsequent years. Currently, Raju is focussed on research-based projects that have a global impact on international audience.

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For Jaya

Without whom this book would not have been possible and to Krishnan for his incisive inputs

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Military supplies and aircraft deals have always stimulated writers, investigative journalists and film makers to create great works describing its complexities and moral contradictions. Playwright George Bernard Shaw, who was also a political activist, captured the spirit of this business in his 1905 play Major Barbara, where munitions manufacturer Andrew Undershaft confesses: Here I am, a profiteer in mutilation and murder. Lady Britomart Undershaft, his estranged wife tells her son Stephen: Your father must be fabulously wealthy, because there is always a war going on somewhere. Undershaft agrees: The more destructive war becomes, the more fascinating we find it. His philosophy: "To give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles."

It is said that Shaw had modelled Undershaft after the unscrupulous Greek arms dealer Basil Zaharoff, who had successfully sold faulty Nordenfelt steam-driven submarines to Greece and Turkey by playing up their mutual fears after the Greco–Turkish war in 1897. On top of that he also sold two units to Russia for the Black Sea security.

Anthony Sampson in his 1977 classic Arms Bazaar: From Lebanon to Lockheed says that the honest price policy was followed later in munitions sales to antagonistic countries by Alfred Nobel, Alfred Krupp, Andrew Carnegie and the Dupont family, described as the Merchants of Death. He highlights how US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara (1961–68) chose to ignore President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning during his farewell speech on January 7, 1961 on the threat from Military Industrial Complex to a democratic government. Instead, he initiated US arms sales to NATO countries to offset the deficit in the balance of payments, thus strengthening this lobby.

More recently Andrew Feinstein, former African National Congress parliamentarian and British TV commentator exposed more light on this intriguing world in his book The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade. He describes several deals including Al Yamamah, the largest ever British arms sales to Saudi Arabia from 1985, which was worth about 80 billion British pounds. A 2018 BBC study puts the total global worth of defence related sales as US $100 billion with United States of America capturing 34 per cent of the market, which is 58 per cent higher than its nearest competitor Russia, the second largest exporter.

AgustaWestland VVIP Chopper Deal, although not an arms contract is now engaging prime attention in India as the NDA government chose to give more importance to the extradition of Christian Michel, its prime accused and alleged bribe giver, by sending a special aircraft to ferry him to the country. He was the twentieth fugitive brought back to India from United Arab Emirates since 2002, which included hardened terrorists like Indian Mujahideen financier Abdul Wahid Siddibapa (Bhatkal Gang) responsible for ten bombings (2007–13) and 235 killings; all were flown in only by commercial airlines.

Senior journalist Raju Santhanam, who has long experience as an investigative journalist has now produced a riveting book on AgustaWestland VVIP Chopper Deal based on his extensive research from open sources supplemented with his personal acquaintance of Christian Michel. It is quite interesting to read that he got acquainted with Michel while on a quest to write a book on his father, the late Wolfgang Max Richard Michel alias Wally Michel, a mystery figure.

During my service I too had heard about Wally Michel but never had an opportunity to meet him. As Raju had said, Wally Michel’s activities used to transcend arms deals, blurring the borders between state to state relations, diplomacy and intelligence. That was the reason why his activities were covered by D-notice, which is DSMA Notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee) by UK government and fifteen media representatives, which oversee a voluntary code operating between the government national security departments and the media.

A book on Wolfgang would have been an international bestseller. Yet the current attention in India made Raju change tracks and write about the son, sidelining his enigmatic father, chronicling Michel’s own fight with Finmeccanica (the parent company of AgustaWestland), the Italian prosecutors and Guido Haschke (the man who let him down), and later, the Indian government. In doing this Raju gives a fascinating 360-degree image to the subject, which no media report has been able to provide so far.

Vappala Balachandran

Former Special Secretary

Cabinet Secretariat

TIMELINE OF THE CASE

PREFACE

In both cases – Agusta and Bofors, the controversy died a quiet death in the country of its origin, namely Italy and Sweden.

It seems quite strange writing about someone whom you thought you had known fairly well till you get hit by stuff that runs so contrary to the opinion you had formed of him over the years. The Christian Michel I knew is not the one that is being projected in the media today with their headlines calling him the Agusta ‘Middleman-Fixer’ . Although I had met him for the first time around 14 years ago, way back sometime in 2004, I got to know Michel well enough only after 2010, after he agreed to my suggestion that we write a book about his father, Wolfgang Max Richard Michel, who passed away in 2012.

At this point in time, Christian Michel was relatively unknown, and there was nothing to suggest that he was even remotely involved in any controversial deals. One had never imagined that he would be engulfed in a cloud of infamy soon after (from 2013 onwards) – chased by Interpol, sought by Italian prosecutors and wanted by Indian agencies.

The book about his father got sidelined and I found myself chronicling Michel’s own fight with Finmeccanica (the parent company of AgustaWestland), the Italian prosecutors and Guido Haschke (the man who let him down), and later, the Indian government. All of this forms the core of this book.

Suave, polite, affable and dignified, Michel always came across as a gentleman whose attitude to life and people was simple, positive and unique. I could not help but compare that image with what I saw recently on television following Michel’s extradition to India from Dubai. His ruffled hair, and the look of consternation on his unshaven face spoke of harrowing days spent in Dubai’s jail, where he was confined for more than hundred days.

So, was Michel indeed a fixer middleman who had connections with the Gandhi family? He has consistently denied having met any member of the Gandhi family. All this is now a matter of enquiry for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and other agencies. It is obvious that disclosures (if any) about Gandhi connections to the AgustaWestland (AW) scam would reap political dividends for the ruling party in the election season in 2019.

What then is the real truth?