Indian tender twisted to favour Italian firm - prosecutors

Italy: Three brothers with family ties to a former head of the Indian air force helped to twist rules in a helicopter tender won by Italy's AgustaWestland, prosecutors alleged in an arrest warrant for a top Italian businessman.

Italian prosecutors said in the warrant reviewed by Reuters that two managers at AgustaWestland, a unit of defence group Finmeccanica, paid go-betweens to help it win the 2010 contract to supply 12 helicopters to India. Part of these payments ended up with the three Indian brothers, Juli, Docsa and Sandeep Tyagi, whose cousin Sashi Tyagi was former Indian air force chief. None of the Tyagis has been accused of wrongdoing by officials in India.

In a growing corruption scandal, police arrested AgustaWestland's former chief executive Giuseppe Orsi, who now heads Finmeccanica. Orsi denies any wrongdoing over the 556-million-euro deal. The case, which is still in its preliminary investigation phase, has rocked Italy before parliamentary elections on February 24-25, and also in India, the world's largest weapon importer.

Prosecutors in the northern town of Busto Arsizio, near AgustaWestland's headquarters, said Orsi hired US-born Guido Ralph Haschke, who was then a consultant for the Finmeccanica group, to lead dealings in India to secure the contract.