Bagri lawyer moves to strike testimony


VANCOUVER, April 14, 2004

One of the defence lawyers at the Air India trial has asked the judge to declare some recent testimony inadmissible.

That testimony came last Thursday during the Crown's cross-examination of retired FBI agent Ron Parrish about information he had received from an informant.

The informant is also a key witness against one of the accused – Ajaib Singh Bagri – and cannot be named by court order.

Parrish said the informant had told him that Bagri had talked about the people who died in the bombing of the Air India jet in 1985.

According to Parrish, Bagri said, "If they were good Sikhs,they don't mind dying. If they were bad Sikhs, well, so what?"

Now, Bagri's lawyer, Michael Code, says that evidence shouldn't be considered part of the case against his client.

Code admitted he should have objected to the testimony when Parrish said it, but didn't. He said the alleged statement took the defence team by surprise.

The Crown wants Parrish's testimony to remain admitted as evidence.

The judge will rule on Code's application Thursday.

(Rource CBC.ca)


Witness recalled at Air India trial

 

VANCOUVER, April 14, 2003

A key witness in the Air India trial will be recalled for cross-examination on Thursday.

The witness, a Vancouver woman who cannot be named by court order, is a former friend of accused bomber Ajaib Singh Bagri and his wife. This will be the her third appearance at the Air India trial.

Bagri and Malik
She first testified in December and then again in February. During those appearances the woman proved to be a challenging witness for the Crown prosecutors.

She claims she has little recollection of statements she made to the RCMP and CSIS during the 1980s and 1990s.

Prosecutors accused her of feigning memory loss. claiming she's afraid of Bagri. They even went so far as to ask the court to declared her a hostile witness so they could question the witness more aggressively.

But the judge refused to make the order.

The Crown had hoped the woman would repeat what she allegedly told CSIS in the 1980s, that Bagri paid her a late night visit on the eve of the Air India bombings and asked to borrow her car to take suitcases to Vancouver airport.

That's not the story she told in court. She testified she couldn't remember the exact date.

Bagri's defence team later presented CSIS surveillance evidence that showed him at the woman's house several weeks before the June 1985 bombings.

During cross examination the witness will be grilled again about her recollection of Bagri's visit.

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, most of them Canadians. The other bomb killed two baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita Airport.

The trial continues.

(Source CBC news)