NEW DELHI - India today asked Interpol to stop an Italian businessman allegedly involved in the Bofors bribery scandal from leaving Malaysia after a request for his extradition was rejected, an official said.

The High Court in Kuala Lumpur earlier today discharged Ottavio Quattrocchi unconditionally and ordered his passport and bail be returned, his lawyer told AFP .

All the charges relate to the 1986 scandal in which Swedish armament company Bofors allegedly paid 14.2 million dollars in bribes to clinch a weapons contract with India worth a total of 1.3 billion dollars.

The Indian government said immediately it would support an appeal in the High Court by the prosecution.

"We have alerted Interpol to keep a watch on Quattrocchi so that he doesn't leave Malaysia," spokesman for India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), G Mohanty, told AFP .

CBI to appeal

He said the CBI had not yet received a copy of the court order, but he added the CBI would appeal against the order in a higher court.

The CBI has charged Quattrocchi in the guns deal case, but the Italian, who has been on bail since his arrest in December 2000, alleges the extradition attempt is politically motivated.

He has 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.

The CBI has also levelled charges at former Bofors agent Win Chadha, the British-based billionaire Hinduja brothers - Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash - and former chief of Bofors, Martin Ardbo. AFP