Enforcement Directorate Director Sudheer Nath left for Iraq via the Royal Jordanian Airlines at 2:30 pm on Tuesday to probe into the fresh charge that Union Minister Natwar Singh had received oil vouchers from the Saddam Hussein regime.

• Volcker Report

Official sources said Nath is leading a three-member team of ED officials to Iraq.

Two other officers are likely to join him over a couple of days.

The ED director is likely to interact with officials of the Iraqi government to ascertain what transpired during the visit of Congress delegation led by Natwar in 2001.

Nath will try to find out whether there was any documentary evidence showing that Natwar Singh had received oil vouchers as alleged by Aneil Mathrani, the former Indian envoy to Croatia, who had been a member of the Congress delegation that had visited Iraq.

He will also visit Baghdad and Amman to hold discussions with officials of the bank, in which Andaleep Sehgal of Hamdaan Exports had deposited the money allegedly received from kickbacks in the purchase and sale of Iraqi oil in the Oil-for-Food scam.

A senior Enforcement Directorate official said the team would try to secure authenticated copies of the vouchers used by Andaleep to deposit the money.

Meanwhile, Aniel Mathrani was again quizzed by the Enforcement Directorate along with Andaleep with the latter being allowed to go at 01:30 pm after three hours of grilling.

With Agency Inputs