Aneil Mathrani's diplomatic passport was taken the moment he landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport late on Saturday night by the officials of the Enforcement Directorate and the same has now been revoked.
This was confirmed by a senior official of the Intelligence Bureau who was present at the airport when he landed in New Delhi. Mathrani, former ambassador to Croatia, had been directed by the govenrment to return to India forthwith after he granted a contoversial interview to India Today in which he had alleged that former external affairs minister Natwar Singh had taken oil coupons from the Iraqi government in January 2000 when Natwar Singh visited Iraq to show solidarity with the people of Iraq and handed over a letter by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi to former dictator Saddam Hussein.
According to senior government officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, Mathrani had timed his disclosure to embrass the government when everything was going smoothly for the United Progressive Alliance government and opposition motion had been defeated on the floor of the House.
"He has taken his revenge on Natwar Singh because the latter refused to get him appointed ambassador at large in United States in place of Agnihotri who had been appointed to the same post by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Mathrani thought that Natwar Singh had denied him his due. In fact, he was making a deal with Natwar," the official said.
The officials,however, denied that IB had any role to play or questioned Matherani about the Oil for Food programme.
"Some debriefing may have been done, otherwise we have no role in the whole affair as it does not concern the national security," the source told rediff.com.
The official also denied that officials of Enforcement Directorate and Research & Analysis wing had detained Mathrani and had whisked him away to an undisclosed destination.
"ED officials who are investigting the oil for food programme deals did question him for couple of hours, but he was allowed to go home after that," the source said.
Media persons who had been thronging the Indira Gandhi International Airport for hours before the arrival of Syrian Airlines flight from Vienna were not allowed to go anyway near him.
Mathrani told a television channel that he has been betrayed by the media and hence he was not inclined to see the journalists till the investigations in the Hamadaan Exports is completed by the ED officials and Justice R S Pathak submits his own findings.
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