VANCOUVER, Canada (Reuters) -- A Canadian judge has cleared two Sikh militants of involvement in the 1985 bombing of an Air India jetliner over Ireland's Atlantic coast, history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airplane.
Shocked families of the 329 victims of the bombing called the ruling devastating and urged the Canadian government to establish a public inquiry into the crime and how it was investigated.
British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Ian Bruce Josephson found Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty of murder and conspiracy in connection with the bombing over the Atlantic as well as a related explosion at Tokyo's Narita airport that killed two people.
Judge Josephson ruled the testimony against the two men was not credible.
Members of the victims' families wept in the courtroom as the judge read the verdicts following an epic, 19-month trial. Malik, 58, and Bagri, 55, smiled at their family members in court when the hearing ended.
"Oh my God. Oh my God," one of the victims' relatives cried to herself. The defendants' relatives, smiled and hugged each other outside the court.
Josephson, who heard 115 witnesses during one of the most complicated and costly cases in Canadian history, called the bombing "fanaticism at its basest and most inhumane level" and agreed the devices that exploded off the Irish coast and in Japan probably originated in Vancouver.
But he said he could not believe key prosecution witnesses who testified that Malik, a wealthy Vancouver businessman, and Bagri, a Kamloops, British Columbia, sawmill worker and Sikh priest, had admitted their roles in the plot.
The judge ruled that justice would not be served if there was any doubt of the defendants' guilt.
More than 70 relatives of the bombing victims came from around the world to hear the verdict, delivered in a specially built C$7.4 million ($6.2 million) high-security court.
"I cannot believe the verdict. All those witnesses would not have come forward and risked their lives. All those poor families. Not in a million years did I think this could happen," said Jeanne Bakermans, a former Canadian Pacific Airlines ticket agent and a witness in the case.
"Today 20 years on we have lost our families all over again to the Canadian justice system," said Sanjay Lazar, who had come to Vancouver from Mumbai to hear the verdict.
Revenge motive
Prosecutors accused the two men of seeking revenge for the Indian Army's 1984 storming of Sikhism's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar. That operation, aimed at ousting militants in the temple, left hundreds of people dead.
The Indian-born Sikh separatists living in Canada were charged with planning to destroy two aircraft simultaneously.
One bomb destroyed Flight 182 while it was on its way from Canada to India, via London, on June 23, 1985. The other exploded 54 minutes earlier in baggage being transferred at Narita airport to Air India Flight 301.
Malik and Bagri were arrested in October 2000.
The defense acknowledged there may have been a conspiracy, but they denied Bagri and Malik were part of it.
"I want to repeat publicly today what I have told the authorities numerous times since 1985, that I had absolutely no involvement in any of these criminal activities," Bagri said in a statement read outside the court by his daughter, Inderdeep Kaur Bagri.
Malik left the court without commenting, trying to avoid reporters as he drove away his family's luxury car.
A prosecution spokesman said they have not decided whether to appeal. Prosecutors have 30 days to make a decision.
"This was no doubt the most complex prosecution in crown counsel history. It was a case that we were satisfied needed to be presented to the court," Geoffrey Gaul told reporters.
The case was made difficult by problems in the long investigation, including the erasure of wiretaps of the suspects in the weeks before and after the Air India explosions.
Malik and Bagri were originally scheduled to be tried with Inderjit Singh Reyat, who was accused of helping to make the bombs, but he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge before the trial began. Reyat was called as a witness, but denied knowing who asked him to assist with the bombs.
In his ruling, the judge referred to Reyat as "an unmitigated liar," whose testimony "bordered on the absurd."
Police say the mastermind of the plot was Talwinder Singh Parmar, a founder of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa, who was killed by Indian police in October 1992.
The names of several other suspects were raised during the trial, and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman said the investigation will remain active.
"We are very disappointed today, but our disappointment does not get in the way of our investigation," RCMP Sgt John Ward said.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/03/16/canada.air.india.reut/index.html
What are you views on this? Do you agree with the verdict?
I personally agree with the verdict, and belive these two men should be cleared of these charges because of all that was happening at the time of the bombings. It put a straight stereotypical prosecution of a Sikh militant group bombing the plane because of what happeneded in 84. How about the Golden Temple being attacked? Why hasn't any justice been served for that, yet it's being used as a push factor to convict these men. I don't know, I just think that enough has been said and done, the verdict as been declared, move on.
Shocked families of the 329 victims of the bombing called the ruling devastating and urged the Canadian government to establish a public inquiry into the crime and how it was investigated.
British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Ian Bruce Josephson found Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty of murder and conspiracy in connection with the bombing over the Atlantic as well as a related explosion at Tokyo's Narita airport that killed two people.
Judge Josephson ruled the testimony against the two men was not credible.
Members of the victims' families wept in the courtroom as the judge read the verdicts following an epic, 19-month trial. Malik, 58, and Bagri, 55, smiled at their family members in court when the hearing ended.
"Oh my God. Oh my God," one of the victims' relatives cried to herself. The defendants' relatives, smiled and hugged each other outside the court.
Josephson, who heard 115 witnesses during one of the most complicated and costly cases in Canadian history, called the bombing "fanaticism at its basest and most inhumane level" and agreed the devices that exploded off the Irish coast and in Japan probably originated in Vancouver.
But he said he could not believe key prosecution witnesses who testified that Malik, a wealthy Vancouver businessman, and Bagri, a Kamloops, British Columbia, sawmill worker and Sikh priest, had admitted their roles in the plot.
The judge ruled that justice would not be served if there was any doubt of the defendants' guilt.
More than 70 relatives of the bombing victims came from around the world to hear the verdict, delivered in a specially built C$7.4 million ($6.2 million) high-security court.
"I cannot believe the verdict. All those witnesses would not have come forward and risked their lives. All those poor families. Not in a million years did I think this could happen," said Jeanne Bakermans, a former Canadian Pacific Airlines ticket agent and a witness in the case.
"Today 20 years on we have lost our families all over again to the Canadian justice system," said Sanjay Lazar, who had come to Vancouver from Mumbai to hear the verdict.
Revenge motive
Prosecutors accused the two men of seeking revenge for the Indian Army's 1984 storming of Sikhism's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar. That operation, aimed at ousting militants in the temple, left hundreds of people dead.
The Indian-born Sikh separatists living in Canada were charged with planning to destroy two aircraft simultaneously.
One bomb destroyed Flight 182 while it was on its way from Canada to India, via London, on June 23, 1985. The other exploded 54 minutes earlier in baggage being transferred at Narita airport to Air India Flight 301.
Malik and Bagri were arrested in October 2000.
The defense acknowledged there may have been a conspiracy, but they denied Bagri and Malik were part of it.
"I want to repeat publicly today what I have told the authorities numerous times since 1985, that I had absolutely no involvement in any of these criminal activities," Bagri said in a statement read outside the court by his daughter, Inderdeep Kaur Bagri.
Malik left the court without commenting, trying to avoid reporters as he drove away his family's luxury car.
A prosecution spokesman said they have not decided whether to appeal. Prosecutors have 30 days to make a decision.
"This was no doubt the most complex prosecution in crown counsel history. It was a case that we were satisfied needed to be presented to the court," Geoffrey Gaul told reporters.
The case was made difficult by problems in the long investigation, including the erasure of wiretaps of the suspects in the weeks before and after the Air India explosions.
Malik and Bagri were originally scheduled to be tried with Inderjit Singh Reyat, who was accused of helping to make the bombs, but he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge before the trial began. Reyat was called as a witness, but denied knowing who asked him to assist with the bombs.
In his ruling, the judge referred to Reyat as "an unmitigated liar," whose testimony "bordered on the absurd."
Police say the mastermind of the plot was Talwinder Singh Parmar, a founder of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa, who was killed by Indian police in October 1992.
The names of several other suspects were raised during the trial, and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman said the investigation will remain active.
"We are very disappointed today, but our disappointment does not get in the way of our investigation," RCMP Sgt John Ward said.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/03/16/canada.air.india.reut/index.html
What are you views on this? Do you agree with the verdict?
I personally agree with the verdict, and belive these two men should be cleared of these charges because of all that was happening at the time of the bombings. It put a straight stereotypical prosecution of a Sikh militant group bombing the plane because of what happeneded in 84. How about the Golden Temple being attacked? Why hasn't any justice been served for that, yet it's being used as a push factor to convict these men. I don't know, I just think that enough has been said and done, the verdict as been declared, move on.
