Indian cabinet minister in bribery scandal asks his PM for help

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An Indian cabinet minister who says he has been unfairly implicated in a foreign bribery case in Ottawa has called on his Prime Minister to intervene with Canada to ensure that he and the Indian government aren't caused more "embarrassment."

Praful Patel, India's Minister of Heavy Industries and a former aviation minister, also called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to open up the books of Air India to clear up any suggestion of his involvement in what the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has called a bribery and bid-rigging scheme at the state-run airline.

In a Globe and Mail report Wednesday, the newspaper detailed the allegations against Nazir Karigar, a 64-year-old Indian-born Canadian citizen and the first individual to be charged under Canada's foreign-bribery law – the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. As part of their case against Mr. Karigar, authorities allege that he divulged to others that he had channelled a $250,000 bribe to Mr. Patel through a political ally in 2007. Mr. Karigar has also been accused of bribing two Air India managers and conspiring with a friend, former Air India director of security Hasan Gafoor, to ensure that his employer was shortlisted for a $100-million contract. Mr. Karigar's employer was a multinational hi-tech security company called CryptoMetrics.

In a letter to India's Prime Minister, Mr. Patel alleged that the proposed contract, which was for a facial-recognition security system, was killed "at inception" and never made its way to his office. "I earnestly request you that the factual position can be conveyed to authorities in Canada in order to avoid any embarrassment to the government of India and to me personally," Mr. Patel wrote, according to a report in the Times of India.

Mr. Gafoor, the former Air India security director who went on to oversee the Mumbai police, has acknowledged that he is friends with Mr. Karigar, but denied that he conspired with him to ensure CryptoMetrics qualified for the contract.

Meanwhile in Canada, experts on the seldom-enforced extraterritorial law said the outcome of Mr. Karigar's case will have serious implications for the country's reputation. In April, Mr. Karigar is scheduled to argue that the charge against him should be thrown out because there is no "real and substantial link" to Canada – a requirement for a judge or jury to find him guilty.

Canada is one of the only countries that is a signatory to the OECD's anti-bribery convention that has not enacted what is known as "nationality jurisdiction" – an amendment that would allow police to charge a bribe payer on the basis of their citizenship, regardless of the bribe's links to Canada. Such an amendment was pending in 2009, but was killed in December of that year when Parliament was prorogued.

Canada has been criticized by the OECD and anti-bribery group Transparency International for not reviving the amendment, and if Mr. Karigar's jurisdictional challenge is successful, it will spark even more scolding, said John Boscariol, a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP.

"If we get a decision like that, it's possible that this could be an embarrassment for Canada," Mr. Boscariol said.

The RCMP has secured two convictions under the act, but both were against corporations and in both cases, the accused pleaded guilty. Mr. Karigar's challenge will be the first time a judge will rule on what constitutes a "real and substantial link" to Canada when it comes to alleged bribery.

"It's going to give us some jurisprudence on a point that could use some jurisprudence," Milos Barutciski, a partner at Bennett Jones LLP, said about the case.

If his challenge is unsuccessful, Mr. Karigar's lawyer, Martin Reesink, has said he will plead not guilty. His trial is scheduled for September at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa.