Media statement by me regarding the Hassn Ali case

originally issued as an EXCLUSIVE TO PTI,and released by them apparently on Sunday 10 April 2011, in a version which has not been copied to me,

HASSAN ALI CASE: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FAMOUS "ATTESTED" LETTER TO UBS

Professor Prabhu Guptara, the person named in recent media reports in the Hassan Ali case, has stepped forward and told his side of the story. “I did receive ‘a’ letter from ‘a’ Mr Hassan Ali,” agrees Guptara, “but UBS is one of the largest banks in the world and, as I was not connected with that side of the business, I simply passed on the letter to the appropriate authorities for their investigation and action – which, as far as I am aware, UBS did by publicly stating that Hassan Ali had no account in UBS”.

Indian media have widely repeated reports of the existence of an attested copy of “a” letter to Professor Guptara, recently retired from UBS as Executive Director, Organisational Development, at a subsidiary company, Wolfsberg. “The problem is that anyone can write a letter to me or to anyone else; one cannot prevent it.”

“While there is great weight being placed on the matter of the letter having been ‘attested’, the reality is that anything can be attested anywhere,” argues Guptara. “All that attestation proves is that the content of a copy matches the ‘original’. But was that original which was attested, the one that was sent to UBS?”

“All that I did was that, when I received a letter from a fellow Indian, I just passed it on to the authorities concerned,” said Guptara. “Was I naïve, as one of my colleagues said right then? Maybe. But I would rather naively help even an Indian I do not know. And I don't regret doing so, except that now it may cost me some goodwill, time and energy due to the insinuations since then.”

“My stand on the substantial matters of ethics involved has always been clear from my teenage years in Delhi through my career globally,” concluded Guptara, former lecturer at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. “Everyone who knows me or my published work, most of which is available on the internet, can attest to that.”

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