Crown presses to use statements in Air India trial

Vancouver Sun, February 19, 2004

VANCOUVER - Investigators in the Air India case were "meticulous" when they took statements from a reluctant witness who implicated accused Air India bomber Ajaib Singh Bagri, prosecutor Richard Cairns said Wednesday.

Cairns responded to defence submissions that the statements should not be admitted as evidence over the woman's testimony because of inaccurate note-taking by investigators.

Bagri lawyer Michael Code also said the statements were unreliable because they weren't taken under oath and the woman rejected key parts of them during her testimony in December.

On the witness stand, the woman, whose identity is protected by court order, claimed no memory of evidence incriminating Bagri.

But Cairns said Justice Ian Bruce Josephson need not consider what the woman said on the stand because the judge has already ruled that she lied.

Josephson earlier rejected a Crown application to declare the woman a hostile witness, though he said she feigned memory loss and was untruthful on the stand. The Crown then applied to get seven of her statements admitted as truth instead of what she said in court.

Josephson reserved his decision on the statements. If they are excluded, the Crown's case against Bagri would be considerably weaker, relying on the evidence of a New York man who was paid more than $460,000 by the RCMP after agreeing to testify.

That man was supposed to arrive in Vancouver Wednesday to meet with the Crown, but has been delayed until the weekend. The trial has been adjourned until Feb. 27.