Defence denies Bagri link to disaster

VANCOUVER, July 08, 2004
By ROBERT MATAS
Globe and Mail

Ajaib Singh Bagri admitted he was partly responsible for the Air-India crash during a conversation in New Jersey shortly after the disaster, a U.S. police informant told the court earlier this year.

However, Mr. Bagri's employment records show he was at work at a mill outside Kamloops, B.C., around the time of the alleged confession, the court was told yesterday. The records also show that Mr. Bagri was at work in Kamloops in June, 1985, on the day it is alleged that the co-conspirators were in Burnaby planning the bombings, defence lawyer Michael Code said.

On the 161st day of the trial, Mr. Bagri's defence team started to pick away at evidence from prosecution witnesses linking Mr. Bagri directly to the twin explosions on June 23, 1985, that killed 331 people.

An FBI informant who cannot be identified in the media told the court that Mr. Bagri admitted some responsibility for the bombings in a conversation at a gas station outside New York a few days before Sept 25, 1985.

The informant also said he could not remember exactly when the conversation took place. In a 1997 statement to police, the informant said the conversation was a few weeks after the Air-India disaster.

Mr. Bagri's work record shows that Mr. Bagri was at work in Kamloops every day of the week leading up to the Air-India disaster and in September, Mr. Code said.

The prosecution's evidence does not fit with independent records of his whereabouts around the time of the bombings in 1985, he also said.

Joe Davies, a union representative from the mill where Mr. Bagri worked, confirmed Mr. Bagri's work records in court. He said attendance records show Mr. Bagri took a two-week holiday in February, 1985, and a two-month leave of absence beginning Oct. 17, 1985. The rest of the year, he was at the mill.