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Purulia accused may appeal to Calcutta HC

With the Ananda Marga Pracharak Sangh deciding to sue the Central Bureau of Investigation for falsely implicating it in the Purulia arms drop case, it seems the four-year drama is far from over.

Now the six accused are also planning to appeal to the Calcutta high court against the Calcutta civil and sessions court's verdict sentencing them to rigorous life imprisonment.

The judgment has sparked a fresh row, with several legal experts, including a member of the International Human Rights Commission, Karina Maselenco, expressing apprehensions about Judge P K Biswas's rulings. What appears to have irked them is the CBI's failure to establish a third country's involvement.

"There is very little strength in the case and the decision is bound to go in favour of the Latvian convicts once it reaches to the higher court. You see, the Latvians, as the crew members of the Russian flight AN 26, had only discharged their duty by complying with Kim Davy's orders. So it is quite unfortunate that the CBI, instead of nabbing the real culprit, was unnecessarily trying to implicate the innocent Latvians," says Shyamal Ghosh, counsel for the Latvians.

According to Ghosh, Briton Peter Bleach hired the five Latvians to transport some "technical equipment" to Bangladesh.

"In fact, they had flown the same flight to Bangladesh via same route a month prior to the arms drop incident. The plane, which had taken off from the Latvian capital, Riga, for Bangladesh on November 23, also stopped over in Varanasi and Calcutta, and the authorities there had found nothing suspicious in the plane," Ghosh says.

Even Bleach had admitted during an interview with the BBC two years ago that he had hired the plane for 16000 pounds.

"I wanted the kind of crew who were well-versed in flying AN 26s. Therefore, I opted for Latvians who had not only had flown the plane before but also came cheaper than European or American crews. All the six Latvians were hired for a salary of $ 1500 a month," Bleach had said.

Peter Bleach, a former British Army officer-turned-small-time-arms-dealer, had worked before for Kim Davy. He used to take orders for the required arms and ammunition from Davy and place it with Border Technology Innovations, another registered, London-based arms dealer. Davy had paid Bleach 460,000 pounds for the arms that were dropped in Purulia, Bleach had reportedly said that the Latvians were innocent.

The five Latvians include Alexander Klishin (captain), Oleg Gaidash (co-pilot), Igor Moskvitin (navigator), Igor Timmerman (flight engineer) and Evgueni Antimenko (flight operator).

Before signing the agreement, all of them were jobless.

In fact, the disintegration of the USSR and the subsequent formation of Latvia as an independent country had a crippling effect on its economy. Therefore, when Bleach offered the Latvians a monthly salary of $ 1500, they readily accepted.

According to Bleach, there was not a single box containing arms and ammunition on the aircraft till it landed in Karachi.

It was here that one Deepak, Davy's close aide, boarded the plane with three huge packages of arms. The Latvians were apparently reluctant to fly the plane after that but, after a heated verbal exchange with the Latvians, Davy suddenly pulled out an AK 47 rifle and threatened to kill all of them if they disobeyed his orders, Bleach had said.

The Latvians had literally broken down after Judge Biswas pronounced his judgement. Alexander Klishin's wife has been forced to sell all her property to make both ends meet. While Oleg Gaidash has survived two heart attacks, Igor Moskvitin is suffering from tuberculosis.

Timmerman had pleaded before the sessions court that his wife was finding it increasingly difficult to raise his two children in his absence.

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