The Canadian Press
February 4, 2004

VANCOUVER (CP) _ The judge in the Air India bombing trial rejected a second attempt by the Crown to have one of its own witnesses declared hostile for changing her story on the stand.

She will be called back to the stand on Monday and Crown prosecutor Richard Cairns will have to pick up where he left off in his line of questioning.

The ruling means he won't be able to aggressively cross-examine her on testimony she gave in December that was mostly ``I don't know'' and ``I don't remember.''

This was a total departure from what she had told investigators about Bagri's involvement in the bombing of an Air India plane in 1985 that killed 329 people.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a court order, said Bagri came to her house on the eve of the terrorist attack to borrow her car to leave luggage at the airport.

She also claimed memory loss on many details about Bagri's alleged links to terrorism contained in her 15 statements to the RCMP and to an agent of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Josephson said during arguments last week that the Crown could still apply to get the woman's earlier statements admitted in the trial, even if he ruled against the hostile witness application.

The judge earlier rejected another Crown application to declare Inderjit Singh Reyat hostile.

Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter a year ago for supplying materials used in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, killing all 329 aboard.

He had earlier been sentenced to 10 years for another blast the same day that killed two baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita Airport.

© 2004 The Canadian Press