Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala):The officials of the Customs Department (Preventive) probing the dollar smuggling case, on Friday recorded the statement of Kerala Assembly Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan's assistant private secretary who appeared at the central agency office here in response to summons, official sources said.
He was summoned to the Customs (Preventive) Office in Kochi to record his statements on the dollar smuggling case.
The official, K Ayyappan, appeared before the probe officials at Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate at 10: 00 am and left the office at 7 pm.
The notice asking Ayyappan to appear for questioning was delivered at his residential address on Thursday after the Speaker maintained that his prior permission was required to interrogate a member of his personal staff.
The Customs had responded strongly criticising to it on Thursday and went on to serve a fresh notice to K Ayyappan at his residence summoning him for interrogation on the dollar smuggling case.
The central agency had earlier issued summons to Ayyappan at his official address in connection with the probe into the case related to alleged smuggling of USD 1,90,000 (equivalent to Rs 1.30 crore) by a former finance head of the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram to Muscat in Oman.
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The matter came to light during the course of the probe by various central agencies, including the Customs, into the smuggling of gold using diplomatic channel that was unearthed with the seizure of Rs 15 crore worth of the precious metal from a baggage of the UAE consulate at the Thiruvananthapuram airport on July 5.
The Speaker had come under criticism from the Opposition parties for inaugurating the shop of one of the accused in the gold smuggling case, Sandeep Nair, months ago.
Initial reports said that K Ayyappan was told to appear before the Customs probe team over the phone. Ayyappan had then said he cannot appear before the investigation team as was not served notice.
However, Customs claimed that he was served a notice and that he had agreed to appear before the probe team. But Ayyappan had not turned up. After this, the Customs sent the notice by email.
Ayyappan then responded requesting the Customs team another date for the interrogation as he was too busy with the preparations for the Assembly session on Friday. Finally, Ayyappan appeared before the Customs probe team at Kochi on Friday, the opening day of the Assembly session. He was let to leave after the interrogation.
