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New Delhi: The US attorney whose role in the decision to drop the criminal case against billionaire tycoon Gautam Adani was questioned by a federal judge has now told the court that he was not the decisionmaker and has no reason to doubt the Department of Justice’s explanation for abandoning the prosecution.

In a sworn declaration filed on Friday (July 17), Joseph Nocella Jr., the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, said that principal associate deputy attorney general R. Trent McCotter alone decided to seek dismissal of the indictment after considering arguments presented by defence lawyers and Justice Department officials.

Nocella said he attended several meetings in the case but that McCotter ultimately exercised his authority to conclude that further government resources should not be devoted to the prosecution.

“I was not the decisionmaker for the motion to dismiss,” Nocella said. He added that both his May 11 email to defence lawyers and his signing of the Justice........

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