An Italian businessman wanted by India over the Bofors arms corruption scandal will ask the Malaysian High Court today to throw out New Delhi's extradition request, his lawyer said.

"I will ask the court to throw out India's extradition request and terminate the review proceedings," Ottavio Quattrocchi's counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told AFP.

"I will urge the judge to immediately allow Quattrocchi to travel anbroad without any restriction."

The extradition case is expected to resume today after government lawyers supported by India pushed for a High Court review following last week's lower court's decision to deny the extradition of 64-year-old Quattrocchi.

Sessions Court Judge Akhtar Tahir ruled that he was unable to conduct an extradition inquiry without having the charges before him.

The court discharged the Italian businessman unconditionally and ordered his passport and bail be returned.

India has been seeking his extradition in relation to the 1986 scandal in which Swedish armament company Bofors allegedly paid RM54 million in bribes to clinch a weapons contract with India worth a total of RM5 billion.

Decision expected today

A two-member team from India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have arrived in Malaysia to assist local lawyers representing the Indian government.

Muhammad Shafee said he expected arguments of both parties to be completed by today and would urge High Court Judge Augustine Paul to make a ruling.

"I will press for an oral judgement on Monday. I hope a decision will be made. My client has not been able to travel for the past two years," the counsel said.

Quattrocchi, who had been on bail since his arrest in December 2000, had said the extradition attempt was politically motivated.

He had said he fell foul of an Indian political vendetta and his only crime was to have been a close friend of India's former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and his widow Sonia.

Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, and Sonia now heads the opposition Congress party.

India's CBI has levelled charges against Quattrocchi as well as former Bofors agent Win Chadha, the British-based billionaire Hinduja brothers — Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash — and former chief of Bofors, Martin Ardbo.

Extradition order

Malaysia's Home Affairs Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had formally issued an extradition order against Quattrocchi but a court must rule on whether to enforce it because the two countries do not have an extradition treaty.

Quattrocchi lived in New Delhi until 1993 as the representative of Italian firm Snamprogretti Spa and then moved to Malaysia.