BHOPAL, India -- Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson, free on bail after being charged in history's worst chemical disaster, will leave India 'sometime soon,' a U.S. Embassy spokesman said today.
A government spokesman in Bhopal, Sudeep Banarjee, said the state had asked the central government to deport the American executive.
Anderson, global chairman of the giant $9 billion chemical company, was arrested Friday in the central Indian city of Bhopal where he was charged with criminal liability for a poison gas leak from one of his company's plants. The leak killed more than 2,000 people.
'As of last night he had no definite plans, but he should be leaving sometime soon,' U.S. Embassy spokesman Bill Miller said. 'He told me he had some things he wanted to do first.'
Miller could not confirm that Anderson had been ordered deported.
Banarjee refused to say whether the central government had pressured the state to release Anderson but acknowledged that state chief minister Arjun Singh had spent most of Friday with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
'We did not make any mistake (in arresting Anderson),' he said. 'We did the right thing.'
Anderson was staying at an undisclosed location but was expected to speak to newsmen before leaving the country, Miller said.
A spokesman for the government of Madhya Pradesh state, where the plant is located, said Anderson was charged under seven sections of the Indian penal code, which carry punishments ranging to life imprisonment.
Anderson and top officials of Union Carbide's Indian subsidiary went to Bhopal, 360 miles south of New Delhi, to deliver medical supplies for victims of the Dec. 3 leak.
The Press Trust of India said more than 100,000 people were affected by the toxic gas methyl isocyanate and at least 2,000 died, most by drowning in the fluids that filled their lungs.
'Mr. Anderson was released because he was not required for the investigations into the gas tragedy,' a state government spokesman said.
Bail of $2,000 was provided by an Indian employee of the company, but the two top Indian executives of the subsidiary, Chairman Keshev Mahindra and Managing Director Vijay P. Gokhale, remained in custody.
State officials in Bhopal insisted the charges against Anderson had not been dropped and they expect him to return to face trial.
The price of Union Carbide's common stock fell 1 points Friday, bringing the drop for the week to 11 . The steepest drop -- 5 -- came Thursday.
During his six hours under arrest, Anderson was held under guard by 24 policemen at the Union Carbide guest house, about 4 miles from the city.
'They (police) treated him nicely and politely,' Miller said.
In Bhopal, state chief minister Arjun Singh justified the arrest by saying, 'This government cannot remain a helpless spectator to the tragedy and knows its duty toward thousands of innocent citizens.'
He charged that the lives of local people had been 'rudely and traumatically affected by the cruel and wanton negligence on the part of the management of Union Carbide.'
Company officials in Danbury, Conn., said the government had violated assurances of safe passage given to Anderson before flying to Bhopal.
The U.S. commercial consul, James A. Becker, who was in Bhopal, said police stopped him from meeting with Anderson.
'The government of the United States was ready to provide emergency help to the victims, provided the request came from the Indian government,' Becker said. 'It is a pity that when we come to help, we are arrested. I have never seen anything like this before.'
