Ajit Doval: The Man Behind Extradition Of Augusta Westland Middleman Christian Michel

Agusta Westland ‘middleman’ Christian Michel was extradited to India on 4 December 2018. At some point in the last week, the Indian government said that they are within sniffing distance to finally secure Michel’s extradition, which was finally successful on Wednesday (5 December).

As per a Livemint report, the extradition was the culmination of India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s and Indian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Navdeep Suri’s quiet, but intense diplomacy.

It wasn’t revealed how many times Doval visited UAE or how many telephonic conversations he had to get on to present India’s case and to convince the UAE authorities to ensure British national Michel was extradited to India, but “it was many trips and many, many phone calls for over a year”.

The report also claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rapport with rulers of Abu Dhabi, particularly with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan was also one of the reasons for a smooth extradition.