GENEVA, July 7: ``I saw Rajiv Gandhi metamorphose from Mr Clean to Mr Cover-Up in a matter of ten days after the Bofors scandal broke. There was no doubt in my mind already in April 1987 that he was a prime suspect in the case,'' India's former ambassador to Sweden B M Oza told The Indian Express today. ``The level of desperation and cover-up in the Prime Minister's Office in the week after April 16th (when Swedish state radio reported on the bribes) was a terrible give-away, the former Indian diplomat said.

``The deal swung in favour of Bofors after Ottavio Quattrocchi came into the picture around October 1985. He met Bofors officials in Delhi and his contacts with the company were strengthened when (Bofors executive) Martin Ardbo spent 55 days in New Delhi in early 1986 around which time the contract was finalised,'' Oza told this newspaper in an exclusive interview from Los Angeles where he is currently on vacation.

Ardbo, former chief executive of Bofors who negotiated the gun deal with India accompanied Prime Minister Olof Palme on an official visit to New Delhi in January 1986, two months before the Bofors contract went to Sweden instead of France which was the front-runner, Oza said. Apparently, Quattrocchi was a familiar face during Palme's New Delhi visit.

``Quattrocchi was everywhere. Even during my days in the finance ministry, Quattrocchi was in and out of Pranab Mukherjee's office,'' Oza said to make the point that the Italian's connections with the Gandhi family gave him privileged access denied to comparable executives of multinationals in India. ``It was clear to everyone what his role in the Bofors deal was,'' the Indian diplomat said.

It may be recalled that documents from Sweden and Switzerland have identified Ottavio Quattrocchi as one of the recipients of the kickbacks from Bofors paid into secret Swiss bank accounts. Bofors paid Indians and others an estimated $250 million as grease-money to bag the $1.3 billion gun contract for the sale of 410 howitzers to India.

Oza's story told in his book Bofors -- The Ambassador's Evidence is the first inside story of an official directly involved with the governments of India and Sweden and Bofors in the early days of the scandal when the cover-up operation was just being established.

Oza said his worst suspicions were confirmed when ahead of Rajiv 's visit to Stockholm in early 1988, Sweden's justice minister Anna-Gretta Leijon leaned on Swedish prosecutor Lars Ringberg, then investigating the case, to close the investigations. Ringberg's letter to India seeking cooperation never reached the Indian embassy. The Swedish prosecutor, in a rare moment of disgust, told this correspondent around that time he was ``fed up'' and was throwing in the towel because neither the Swedes nor the Indians were being helpful. ``The PMO then just did not want any information from Sweden and blocked everything,'' Oza said. ``Ronen Sen who was joint-secretary in the PMO was a nodal point for collecting information. He liaised between me and the PMO but all my notes were ignored,'' Oza said. Among the people who visited Stockholm to try and stop Ringberg's investigation was Natwar Singh who was then Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

The Bofors scandal broke on April 16, 1987. Five days later on 21st April, Oza said Rajiv Gandhi personally called Ingvar Carlsson and the two talked about the deal and the revelations in the media. ``I had started my own investigation by this time, but I was called in by Carl-Johann Arberg, state secretary for foreign trade who told me the two prime ministers had spoken and that there was no point in my conducting an investigation,'' Oza said. Later, in an interview to Indian media, Carlsson denied any wrongdoing in the case and Rajiv Gandhi maintained till the very end when he lost the elections in 1989 that he had been assured by the Swedes that all was above board.

In June 1987, the Swedish National Audit Bureau (SNAB) produced a report documenting the bribes, their route and some names of recipients and fronts. India however received a sanitised version. Rajiv Gandhi relied on this blacked-out report to say he had been vindicated and that there was no commission, just some pre-contract winding-up charges.

Oza asked Per Over Morberg, president of Bofors and Anders Carlberg of the Nobel group (Bofors' parent organisation) to explain what these ``winding-up'' charges were, but they fudged. ``I then sent a note to India saying we cannot rely on Bofors and that we should do three things we should conduct our own investigation, we should explore the possibility of a criminal investigation against Bofors and finally, we should blacklist the company until the outcome is known,'' Oza said.

He was ignored. Oza's tenure in Sweden ended in June 1988 by which time a massive leak of documents to this correspondent had shot large holes in the official Indo-Swedish-Bofors version.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.