The  bombing  of  Air  Canada

 

Truly one of the most reprehensible crimes ever committed against innocent human beings was the one that took place on June 23, 1985. It was the bombing of Air India over the Atlantic in which 329 innocent people were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded on the plane. There were no survivors. Of those who were killed, 268 were Canadian citizens, (mostly of Indian birth or descent) 27 were British citizens and 24 were East Indian citizens.                   

 The plane exploded at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9,400 m) and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. While some passengers survived the initial explosion and subsequent decompression, none survived the impact with the ocean.                  

 Can anyone actually imagine what it must have been like for many of the victims who were blown out of the plane, minus some with their limbs.               

 Who would commit such a horrible crime against so many men, women, children and even babies? Well, we know who these animals were. The 1985 explosion and downing of the Air India plane occurred within an hour of the fatal Narita Airport (Japan) bombing. They were both conducted by Sikh terrorists from Canada. In Narita case, a bag exploded on the ground before being placed on another Air India flight. Two baggage handlers were killed. Evidence from the explosion pointed to an attempt to blow up two airliners simultaneously. If the bomb at Narita had exploded in the plane when it was in the air, the loss of life could have equaled that of the bomb that downed the Air Canada plane.                                                                                                                     

 Canadian law enforcement determined that the main suspects in the bombing were members of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa (a Khalistani militant armed organization based in India) and other related groups based in Canada. The bombings are widely thought to be the work of western Canadian-based Sikhs fighting for an independent homeland in India, who wanted revenge for India's deadly 1984 storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest shrine.                                                                                                                     

 Though a handful of members of this terrorist organization were arrested and tried, Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Canadian resident, was the only person convicted of involvement in the bombing. There was a lack of solid evidence, and the prosecution had committed various legal and investigative errors. Reyat pleaded guilty in 2003 to manslaughter. He was sentenced to 9 years in prison for building the bombs that exploded aboard Flight 182 and at Narita.                

Before I return to Reyat’s case, I will explain the really stupid blunders committed by the Canadian authorities that resulted in none of those in Canada (other than Reyat) who committed those crimes were sentenced to prison for the bombing of Air Canada because of outright stupidity on the part of the police investigation and the prosecution of these criminals.                          

There was a royal inquiry set up to look into the bombing of Air India. Former Supreme Court Judge, John Major, who headed the inquiry concluded that “a cascading series of errors contributed to the failure of our police and our security forces to prevent this atrocity (because) various institutions and organizations did not fulfill their responsibilities.”                                                     

Blunders                                                                                                                                 

There was a dysfunctional relationship that existed for decades between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP—Canada’s federal police) and Canadian Security Intelligence Service, (CSIS) which botched the Air India bombing investigation. The turf wars were what prevented the Canadian authorities from preventing the 1985 attack on Air India.  Canada isn’t the only country that has such a problem. Many police forces in various countries are in conflict with one another because they lack their ability to recognize that they must share information that is useful to each of them.                                               

The investigation and prosecution took almost 20 years and was the most expensive trial in Canadian history, costing nearly CAD $130 million. A special Commission found the accused perpetrators not guilty and they were released. The only person convicted of involvement in the bombing was Inderjit Singh Reyat, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to manslaughter in constructing the bomb used on Flight 182.  He received a nine-year sentence. He was refused parole in July 2007. He has currently appealed to the British Columbia Court of Appeal to be released on parole.  The court has reserved its decision. As soon as I find out what the court’s decision is, I will update this article.                                          

Stupidity                                                                                                                      

The CSIS often failed to disclose promptly to the RCMP information relevant to the criminal investigation, particularly information from human sources, or alternatively it disclosed information without sufficient detail or in a manner that prevented the RCMP from using the information.                                              

The CSIS was mesmerized by the mantra that “CSIS doesn’t collect evidence,” and used it to justify the destruction of raw material and information. CSIS erased the tapes that caught coded conversations possibly related to the planning of the bombing, and CSIS investigators destroyed their notes that recorded the information CSIS sources provided in relation to the Air India bombing. Both of these actions compromised the prosecution’s position at trial.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The CSIS delayed disclosure of necessary information for the prosecution of Interjit Singh Reyat by adopting a legalistic and technical approach in responding to requests from prosecutor James Jardine.                                           

The RCMP never made a written request that the Parmar tapes be preserved, though it was aware of their existence, and also never made a verbal request specific to the Parmar tapes until months into the investigation, when the early tapes were already erased. CSIS only ceased ongoing erasure in 1986, following a request by the Department of Justice in connection with the civil litigation. It is impossible to determine what information, if any, was lost due to the tape erasures.                                                                                                                        

The RCMP often prematurely discounted or failed to follow up on intelligence leads that did not conform to its primary theory of the case. For example, one suspect was ruled out based on observations, made two years after the bombing that his hair did not look like the hair of one of the individuals who had checked in the luggage, as depicted in an imprecise composite drawing. Did the dummies not consider that he might have changed the colour of his hair?                                                                                                                                       

The RCMP also prematurely dismissed information on the basis of preliminary assessments of credibility. When Person #1, prior to the bombing, provided information about a plot to bomb an Air India plane, his information was discounted as it was believed he was providing the information for his own personal interests. This suspicion persisted after the bombing and it took months–and critical media reports–before the RCMP reluctantly followed up on Person 1’s information, which was ultimately verified by a polygraph examination. Of course by then it was too late to save those on Air India.           

The RCMP failed to appreciate the continuing threat of Sikh extremism or the fear sources had of their cooperation with the police being discovered. As a result, the RCMP often alienated sources, including sources who had previously been willing to speak to CSIS, because of the manner in which the investigators treated them.                                                                                               

I remember on two occasions many years ago when I was privy to two crimes having been committed and me being questioned by ignorant and rude investigators. I told them to go to hell and refused to say another word to them other than say, “Goodbye.” Police investigators should treat witnesses to a crime like gold instead of treating them like rusty iron.                                             

The RCMP failed to appropriately protect sources and witnesses. The RCMP, at times, failed to take threats against Tara Singh Hayer seriously. If you don’t protect witnesses, they won’t testify because of threats.                                            

Many years ago, the Toronto police asked me to convince two victims of a knifing to testify against the criminal who knifed the two of them and convince a third person who was an eyewitness to the knifings to testify against the criminal. I told the police that the witnesses were afraid of the criminal’s friends attacking them. The police told me to let them know if anyone bothers the victim’s and the witness in any manner whatsoever. The eye witness was threatened by one of the criminal’s friends. I notified the investigators and said, “Do what you have to do to get the message across that these people are in your protection and that there will be serious consequences to anyone who threatens or harms them. Well, the investigators took my words seriously. I later learned that they arrested the thug who threatened the eyewitness and took him to a very isolated spot and broke both of his legs. He was never seen again in Toronto. When the criminal’s trial took place, the three protected people testified against him and he was sentenced to prison for ten years. Two years after his release, he was murdered by a person or persons unknown.          

Tara Singh Hayer, who was the publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times and a member of the Order of British Columbia, had provided an affidavit to the RCMP in 1995 claiming that he was present during a conversation in which Bagri admitted his involvement in the bombings.                                                       

While at the London offices of fellow Sikh newspaper publisher Tarsem Singh Purewal, Hayer claims he overheard a meeting between Purewal and Bagri. In that meeting Hayer claims that Bagri stated that “if everything had gone as planned the plane would have blown up at Heathrow airport with no passengers on it. But because the plane was a half hour late, it blew up over the ocean.”                                                                                                                                   

On 24 January of the same year, Purewal was killed near the offices of the Des Pardes newspaper in Southall, England, leaving Hayer as the only other witness.                                                                                                                                 

On 18 November 1998, Hayer was shot dead while getting out of his car in the garage of his home in Surrey, British Columbia. Hayer had previously survived an earlier attempt made on his life in 1988 but was paralyzed and thereafter used a wheelchair. As a consequence of his murder, his affidavit was inadmissible in court. If the stupid police had protected him, he would have testified in court and Bagri would have been convicted and sent to prison.                                                                                                                                   
The RCMP had installed a video surveillance system in Mr. Hayer’s home, after his name appeared on a “hit list.” However the system was deficient and was not functioning properly on the day of his murder. The RCMP failed to inform Mr. Hayer’s family that no image had been captured on the video cassette since they didn’t want it known that they used defective equipment.                                

If these so-called authorities on investigation techniques and also had an appreciation of the concept of mutual cooperation, all of the offenders would have been caught and duly punished. The RCMP investigation was plagued by internal strife within the E Division team and between E Division and Headquarters. Creative approaches to the investigation were often discouraged. Little progress was made until the 1995 decision to review and revive the investigation, in part because of a concern about the political fallout of a public admission that the investigation was at an impasse.                               

Trial                                                                                                                               

The trial of those accused of the bombing, Sikh separatists Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, became known as the ‘Air India Trial’.                     

Fifteen years after the bombing, on 27 October 2000, RCMP arrested Malik and Bagri. They were charged with 329 counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the people on board Air India Flight 182, conspiracy to commit murder, the attempted murder of passengers and crew on the Canadian Pacific flight at Japan's New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport), and two counts of murder of the baggage handlers at New Tokyo International Airport                                                                                                         

On the 10^th of May 1991, after lengthy proceedings to extradite Reyat from England, he was extradited from England and on June 6, 2001, the RCMP charged Reyat on charges of murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy with respect to the Air India bombing. He was convicted of two counts of manslaughter and served 20 years before he was released from prison. He was expected to provide testimony in the trial of Malik and Bagri.                                 

The trial proceeded between April 2003 to December 2004 in Courtroom 20, more commonly-known as "the Air India courtroom". At a cost of $7.2 million, the high-security courtroom was specially-built for the trial in the Vancouver Law Courts.                                                                                                                          

After a lengthy trial, on March 16, 2005, Justice Ian Josephson found Malik and Bagri not guilty on all counts, since the evidence was inadequate.  He said;                                                                                                                                 

“I begin by describing the horrific nature of these cruel acts of terrorism, acts which cry out for justice. Justice is not achieved, however, if persons are convicted on anything less than the requisite standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Despite what appear to have been the best and most earnest of efforts by the police and the Crown, the evidence has fallen markedly short of that standard.”                                                                                                                 

Perjury                                                                                                                          

The main reason for the failure to convict these two men was that Reyat he denied hearing the men talk about the proposed bombings. He consistently perjured himself 19 times while giving testimony so other than what he might have said truthfully, there was no direct evidence linking those two men to the bombings.                                                                                                                      

Reyat was later sentenced to nine years in prison for perjury. The Supreme Court of Canada rejected Reyat's bid for an appeal of his perjury conviction earlier this year. Now here comes a really obscene part of this debacle. Reyat has now appealed the length of his sentence.  In 2010, he received the nine-year sentence for perjury. After having served only a third of his sentence, he wants to be released. In Canada, a person can actually be released after having served only a third of his sentence.                                                                                
Does he deserve mercy after having served only three years in prison for perjury? Keep in mind that he didn’t lie about his income tax. He lied about what he really knew about two terrorists who killed 331 innocent persons. Those lies made it possible for those two terrorists to walk free. Those were very serious lies which are unworthy of any mercy that man might be entitled too.                                                                                                                                          

His lawyer, Ian Donaldson says that his client has been a good boy in prison. I don’t care if he has been a saint in prison. His crime is extremely gross considering how it brought about the not guilty verdicts of two terrorists who killed 331 human beings.  And what makes matters worse is that he supplied the bomb parts to the two terrorists.                                                                               

His mouthpiece said to the three B.C. Court of Appeal judges; “Reyat has already been severely punished for his crimes and was sorry about the deaths. Reyat's sentence should be cut to six or seven years in prison, instead of the precedent-setting nine year-term he was given in 2010.”                                         

If the court agrees with that lawyer, Reyat could hypothetically be released as soon as the court makes its decision. Of course, the decision rests with the National Parole Board.                                                                                                       

Reyat has rejected one of the values of Canadian society, which is the administration of the justice system. He did this by refusing to answer truthfully that which he knew when being questioned at the Air India trial of the two terrorists.  As I see it, he has no right to be released however, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that according to the law in Canada, he is eligible to be released after serving six years in prison. That is because his release is mandatory unless the parole boards feels that he would still be a risk to society.

Justice Mary Saunders, one of the three judges hearing the appeal said; "We have a witness who is the only person in the criminal justice system held to account for anything to do with that bombing and he refused to divulge information at a murder trial of this nature. The potential for interference of the administration of justice is so great, it's hard to contemplate how much graver it could be except, I guess, cooking up a story that proved not to be the case and resulting in a conviction or a false acquittal."                                              

It would appear that she is going to vote against his release. If the other two vote in his favour, he has the right to then appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.                                                                                                                                  

Crown counsel Len Doust doubts, as did the sentencing judge at Reyat’s perjury trial, that any remorse the man showed towards the families of the Air India bombing victims were sincere. As I personally see it, this evil man’s sniveling which includes telling people how sad he is that these innocent people died, should be ignored and treated simply as a nauseating ploy to elicit sympathy.                                                                                                                             

Summary                                                                                                                     

I said in a speech I gave at a United Nations crime conference held in Milan, Italy in 1985 that all terrorists should be executed. The Italian government was so impressed with my speech; it arranged to have my entire speech shown on Italian TV that night. I haven’t changed my opinion. Terrorists forfeit their right to live when they kill innocent people. Alas, Canada should have made terrorism an exception when they abolished capital punishment.