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Matherani questioned by IB, ED

The envoy, who reached Delhi at 10.20 pm on Saturday by an Austrian Airways flight from Vienna, had not arrived at his Vasant Kunj residence till noon.

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NEW DELHI: A day after he arrived, in the wake of his controversial comments on Union Minister K Natwar Singh's role in the Iraq oil scandal, there was no trace of India's former ambassador to Croatia Aniel Matherani.
  
Matherani, who reached here at 10.20 pm on Saturday by an Austrian Airways flight from Vienna, had not arrived at his Vasant Kunj residence till noon.
  
Security personnel were deployed at his residence. Joint Commissioner of Police Rajesh Kumar said this was done since his mother and family members were living there.
  
According to sources, he was questioned by officials of the Enforcement Directorate, the Intelligence Bureau and the External Affairs Ministry at the Indira Gandhi International airport itself soon after arrival.
 
A political storm had erupted after the news magazine India Today quoted him as having said that Singh had helped his son Jagat and his friend Andaleeb Sehgal procure oil vouchers from the erstwhile Saddam Hussein regime.
"We are keeping all our options open," Enforcement Directorate chief Sudhir Nath told IANS.
 
"All his statements (in a magazine interview), as the prime minister has indicated (in Parliament last Friday) will be scrutinised," Nath added. The interrogation is likely to be a prolonged affair as sleuths of other government departments could also quiz Matherani.
 
"Aneil is not available," his brother Roy Matherani said at his apartment in the south Delhi neighbourhood of Vasant Kunj. "He is in Delhi but he will not be available," the brother added.
 
An ED team headed by Special Director SK Panda will leave for Baghdad to talk to Iraqi officials who met Natwar Singh during his visit there in January 2001.
 
"Natwar Singh must have touched base with a number of people. We will try and talk to as many as possible to unravel the entire picture," an ED source said, referring to Matherani's reported statements that Natwar Singh had facilitated the transaction in Iraqi oil to his son Jagat Singh and his cousin Andaleeb Sehgal who were part of a Congress party delegation to the country at the time.
 
Doubts are being raised on whether Matherani was under pressure to come clean.
 
Sources told IANS that Matherani had been "under increasing pressure" from various quarters to "talk" after growing pressure from investigators and the media over the revelations of the Volcker committee report on the Iraqi corruption scandal.
 
"Natwar Singh, his son Jagat and cousin Andaleeb were already under the scanner. Matherani's testimony puts all three in the dock and may take pressure off from higher ups in the scandal," the sources said.
 
"If he was so concerned, he should have gone public earlier. Obviously, this is a tactical move so that someone takes the rap," the sources said.
 
A top aide to Natwar told IANS, "Even if he (Matherani) said such things about Natwar Singh's involvement, he must have done so under pressure. It's clear some people who do not want to see Natwar Singh in the cabinet are using him."
 
Matherani had denied his or the Congress party's involvement when they were named as ‘non-contractual beneficiaries’ in the $64-billion Iraq oil-for-food
programme.
 
He went a step further to clear his name. "I completely deny having anything to do whatsoever with Natwar Singh's son Jagat Singh, his activities, his business establishment, those of his relatives and friends from Hamdan Exports," he had told NDTV.
 
So why did Matherani choose to have a lengthy "off-the-record" conversations with a news magazine saying exactly the opposite? The magazine claims Matherani often called to find out the "fate of the interview" though he said later that what he spoke was off the record and the magazine had distorted his comments.
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