MolaKule
Staff member
quote:
Trial in '85 Jet Blast Nears End in Canada
New York Times 11/03/04
author: Clifford Krauss
c. 2004 New York Times Company
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 2 - Nearly 20 years after an Air India Boeing 747 from Canada exploded in the air and plunged into waters off the Irish coast killing all 329 people on board, the trial to finally resolve what happened entered its climactic phase this week.
More than 100 witnesses have testified during nearly two years of proceedings in the most serious terrorism trial in Canadian history. A special high-security courtroom was built for the case, at a cost of $6 million, complete with a prisoner dock encased in bulletproof glass. Aging relatives of the victims came from as far away as Sri Lanka to watch from the court gallery.
But as prosecutors opened their final arguments on Monday to convict two Canadian Sikh activists accused of plotting the bombing, the outcome of the trial is far from settled because of years of bungled police work and the unexplained killings of an important witness and suspect.
In addition, important witnesses offered vague and contradictory recollections, and crucial evidence is circumstantial. Both defendants - Ripudaman Singh Malik, 57, a millionaire real estate entrepreneur, and Ajaib Singh Bagri, 56, a sawmill worker and Sikh preacher - pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the bombing of the jet, Air India Flight 182 en route from Toronto and Montreal to Bombay, now known as Mumbai, on June 23, 1985.
The two are also charged with conspiring in an explosion that killed two baggage handlers at Narita Airport outside Tokyo 54 minutes before Flight 182 went down. Prosecutors said both bombs had been placed on Air India aircraft in Vancouver.
"This was a murder plot in which two planes were to explode simultaneously," Robert H. Wright, the chief prosecutor, said as he began to sum up his case. "It is difficult to comprehend how this would happen. Who would do something so terrible?"
Answering his own question, Mr. Wright told the court that only "political and religious zealotry" could motivate such a crime.
Prosecutors say Mr. Malik, who has worn a white tunic at the trial, recruited members of the plot and gave $3,000 to a friend to pick up tickets for the flight with the ultimate intention of planting the bomb on Flight 182. Mr. Bagri, who wears a dark turban, is accused of taking luggage with the explosives to the Vancouver airport.
Neither Mr. Malik nor Mr. Bagri chose to testify.
Prosecutors have alleged that Mr. Malik and Mr. Bagri were motivated to revenge the 1984 Indian Army storming of the Golden Temple of Amritsar after the holy shrine was taken over by militant Sikhs. That attack sparked a cascade of violence and revenge killings that included the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
With no physical evidence or firsthand testimony linking the accused to the bombing, the outcome of the trial is in doubt. The prosecution wraps up its case in the next few weeks, and Justice Ian Bruce Josephson is expected to reach a decision early next year.
The prosecution has shown a video of Mr. Bagri giving an incendiary speech at a Sikh rally in New York in July 1984 in which he said, "We will not take rest until we kill 50,000 Hindus."
But most of the prosecution's case is based on supposed confessions Mr. Malik and Mr. Bagri gave to several associates, ones that they deny making.
The government has highlighted statements made by a Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent that a friend of Mr. Bagri said he had visited her the night before the bombing to ask to borrow her car to drop off some bags at the airport. By court order, the woman, like other crucial witnesses, cannot be identified.
The agent testified that the woman had said that Mr. Bagri implied that wrongdoing would be done, but during the trial she said she did not remember making such statements.
Justice Josephson ruled that the woman's prior testimony should be admitted as evidence after the prosecution argued that witnesses were coming under pressure from Sikh activists.
The crucial prosecution witness against Mr. Malik is a former employee at a religious school that Mr. Malik directed. She testified that he told her in 1996 and 1997, while they were involved in a strong personal, but platonic, relationship that he helped organize the conspiracy and detailed his role in arranging for the purchase and pickup of airline tickets that were used to check in the baggage with the explosives.
The witness said she had distanced herself from him after the admissions, after which she was subjected to threats.
She was eventually fired.
Mr. Malik's lawyer questioned her credibility as a dissatisfied employee.
The prosecution has also been hampered by the fact that the suspected ringleader of the plot, a former Canadian resident, Talwinder Singh Parmar, was killed by the Indian authorities when they caught him clandestinely crossing from Pakistan in 1992.
Tara Singh Hayer, the publisher of a Sikh newspaper in Vancouver, told the police in 1995 that he had overheard Mr. Bagri admit to his role in the attacks.
But three years later, Mr. Hayer was gunned down outside his home in a Vancouver suburb.
[ November 03, 2004, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: MolaKule ]
