Family first for free arms dealer

By Subir Bhaumik BBC correspondent in Calcutta

Bleach emerged from jail to a huge scrum of reporters and onlookers

Freed British arms dealer Peter Bleach has told BBC News his family and girlfriend will be his priority when he returns home to Yorkshire this week.

His company, Aeroserve-UK, has gone out of business during the more than eight years he has been in jail in Calcutta.

"It is my family that is uppermost on my mind," Bleach, 52, told BBC News.

"I have to take care of my mother who is old and sick and has been through hell all these years," he added, following his release on Wednesday.

"I have to take care of my friend Jo Fletcher who has been such a source of support.

"I am delighted to be a free man at last."

"My ordeal is finally over and this is a very emotional moment for me.

"These years have not been easy and I am now eagerly looking forward to returning to UK and being with my family."

It has been a long struggle since 1995 and I feel vindicated that the Indian Government has finally taken the decision to free me Peter Bleach

The Yorkshireman was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of charges involving parachuting crates of assault rifles, anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers and ammunition in the eastern Indian district of Purulia in West Bengal state in 1995.

He says he told the British Government about the plans for the arms drop and the Indian intelligence services were duly informed, but this has been denied.

Asked if he would now try to clear his name, Bleach just winked and said: "Everything else other than my family will have to wait."

A year ago, furiously pounding on a cranky typewriter in his cell, he had told BBC News he was writing a prison diary for publication.

But asked as a free man how he now intended to make a living, he joked: "I will ask the Indian Government to give me a bowl and I will go and beg in a railway station in Calcutta."

Asked if he felt his safety would now be threatened by people wishing to silence him, Bleach said: "We will see what happens - but I must say I was safer here in the heat of prison."

Bleach says he told the British Government about the arms drop

Bleach and five Latvian pilots were arrested when their plane was forced to land at Bombay on its way back to Europe.

The Latvians were freed after a presidential pardon in 2000 after heavy pressure from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bleach was pardoned by the Indian president last Friday but his release was delayed for procedural reasons.

"Nothing can replace the years I have lost," he told BBC News.

"It has been a long struggle since 1995 and I feel vindicated that the Indian Government has finally taken the decision to free me.

"I don't want acrimony now - but I must say I stand by my convictions that I was innocent all the way through."