Ex-Ontario Premier To Review Air India Bomb Case
 
April 26, 2005

Canada appointed former Ontario Premier Bob Rae on Tuesday to recommend if a public inquiry is needed into allegations police and Canada's spy agency bungled the Air India bombing case.

Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan, who has opposed an inquiry in the past, said Rae will review actions taken by police after the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 off Ireland's Atlantic Coast. With 329 people killed, it was history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airliner.

"Only when we have a good understanding of any outstanding questions that can reasonably be answered now can we decide on the next steps, but I want to emphasize that I am open to all options," McLellan said in a written statement.

Relatives of the Flight 182 victims demanded an inquiry after a court last month cleared two Sikh activists of murder charges in the case. In his verdict, the judge in the case assailed the evidence presented by prosecutors as being inadequate.

Prosecutors have until mid May to decide if they will appeal the ruling.

The Liberal Party government agreed to name a special adviser to review whether an inquiry is needed after opposition parties introduced legislation that called for a full inquiry.

The Air India police investigation has long been controversial. During the investigation, the Canada Security Intelligence Service destroyed wiretap evidence rather than share it with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

McLellan has said the spy agency was cleared of wrongdoing in a 1992 review by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, and that Canada's anti-terrorism efforts have changed significantly since the Air India bombings.

The committee's report remains classified as top secret, although, according to court documents released at the trial, a top RCMP official dismissed its findings as grossly inaccurate.

The oversight committee's former chairman later complained the RCMP had attempted to blame CSIS to cover up its own mishandling of the case.

Rae was a member of Security Intelligence Review Committee from 1998 to 2003, according to the committee's web site.
Images of Air India wreckage released
Last updated Apr 27 2004 06:56 PM PDT
CBC News
VANCOUVER – A videotape showing the reconstruction of Air India flight 182 has been released to the media covering the trial.

 


The recovered right front door of Air India
Flight 182
The aircraft exploded in mid-air off the coast of Ireland in June 1985, killing all 329 people on board.

 

 

The video is a silent tour of parts of the rebuilt plane as it sits in a secret warehouse location in Vancouver.

 

On screen are close up shots of what was recovered from the ocean floor – a huge hunk of fuselage, the windows still in place, the plane's metal skin puckered from the heat.

 


An inside view of the right front door
Beside it, hang simulated plane parts – reconstructions of pieces of flight 182 that couldn't be recovered.

 

The simulations were made from photographs – and are a stark contrast to the real thing. Their metal is pristine, smooth and untattered.

 

The reconstruction is a key piece of evidence in the trial of the two men accused of blowing it up – and is expected to be a cornerstone of the Crown's case.

 

 

Oxford University professor Christopher Peel, who is an exert in aviation explosions, has testified he has never seen so much simulated material in a reconstruction of this sort.

 

On Wednesday, Peel, the judge, the lawyers and the court clerks will move the hearing to the warehouse itself – so Peel can actually walk up to what's left of the big plane.

 


A container recovered from the wreckage
He's expected to show how the tears in the metal demonstrate exactly where the suitcase bomb was stored in the luggage hold.

 

 

Meanwhile the judge has taken Canada's spy agency to task. Mr. Justice Ian Bruce Josephson ruled the rights of one of the accused had been violated.

 

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service destroyed audiotapes and notes from interviews with a witness in the 1980s.

 

She testified against accused bomber Ajaib Singh Bagri.

 

The judge the material should have been preserved, and destroying them violated Bagri's charter right to disclosure of the evidence against him.

 

Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik are on trial in B.C. Supreme Court, charged with killing 331 people in two separate bombings on the same day in June, 1985.

 

One bomb killed 329 people onboard Air India Flight 182. The other bomb killed two baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita Airport.
 

  

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