Lawyers for accused Air India bomber to call defence witnesses this month


VANCOUVER, May 6, 2004

The legal team working to clear the name of an accused Air India bomber announced plans to call witnesses and evidence in his defence, including the diary of another suspect in the attack.

Witnesses testifying on behalf of Ripudaman Singh Malik will be flown in from Calgary shortly after the close of the Crown's case against him.

Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri are accused in the murder of 331 people, mostly Canadians, killed in an explosion on an Air India flight that left Vancouver in 1985.

Another bomb, which the Crown alleges was meant to also go off in the air, exploded in a suitcase being transferred at Tokyo's Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers.

Until now, the defence has given few hints as to what, if any, evidence it would present.

Malik's lawyer, David Crossin, said Monday he wants the diary of the recently deceased Hardial Singh Johal admitted.

Johal was picked up twice during the 20-year investigation into the Air India crash, but was never charged with any offence.

His diary was seized at his home by police and translated.

"We want to deal with a section that refers to a meeting in June 1985,'' Crossin told Justice Ian Bruce Josephson of the B.C. Supreme Court.

The Crown is fighting to have the document excluded from the trial and Crossin said he expects a voir dire, a separate hearing, may have to be held on its admissibility.

He said it's possible, though, that he may be able to call some witnesses during the third week of May.

"Two are from Calgary. The evidence is also relevant to Mr. Bagri,'' Crossin said.

The plans come as Crown prosecutors wrap up the case against the Vancouver businessman and Kamloops millworker accusing them of Canada's worst act of terrorism.

It took almost 20 years for investigators to bring charges and more than a year for prosecutors to present evidence.

Geoff Gaul, spokesman for the Crown, said the fact the trial isn't dragging on longer is a remarkable accomplishment.

"There was a huge volume of material, decades worth, to go through,'' Gaul said.

"The Crown and the defence have worked very hard to agree on statements of fact that have eliminated the need to call many witnesses.''

The co-operative admissions made by both sides on forensic evidence alone excused some 50 witnesses, Gaul said.

An amazing amount of time and energy has been spent on the forensic evidence, the last chapter of the case.

Experts were hired to reconstruct the post-blast pieces of the plane. They have been assembled in a Vancouver warehouse, the location of which is being kept top secret.

Engineering scholars from the British universities of Oxford and Cranfield testified that figuring out where the bomb was planted on the plane was a major challenge with so much of the wreckage lost at sea.

The fact is key to the Crown's case, which alleges Malik and Bagri arranged to have explosives planted in a suitcase that went in baggage hold 52, designated for bags loaded in Vancouver.

If the bomb was laid a metre away in a cargo hold containing luggage from Toronto or somewhere else, the connection to the Vancouver suspects is gone.

An expert called by the defence has been trying to disprove the Crown's theory this week.

Arnold Taylor, a wreckage trail analyst, testified the back end of the plane where the bags were held stayed intact longer than other areas, suggesting the bomb wasn't hidden there.

But he was forced to admit Thursday critical miscalculations in his report uncovered by the Crown.

"One of the problems of such an incomplete recovery of the wreckage is that we don't know for sure how such things happen,'' said Taylor.

"This is not an exact science.''

(Source The Canadian Press)