VANCOUVER, July 13, 2004
(CP)
A woman who claims she had to borrow an accused bomber's car on a key
weekend when the plot was being finalized had three vehicles at home
plus a motorcycle, she admitted under cross examination.
Prosecutor Richard Cairns said it didn't make sense that she would
need to take Ajaib Singh Bagri's car to Vancouver the weekend before
the Air India terrorist attack.
"Your family had three cars plus a motorcycle to use and Bagri's
family, five kids and a wife, had none?''
"Yes,'' said Jagdish Kaur Johal.
"The fact is, you obviously didn't need to borrow Bagri's car,''
Cairns pressed.
"A fact, it could be, yes,'' she said.
Cairns suggested Bagri drove her and her mother to Vancouver that weekend
and dropped them off while he took care of his business in town.
He said arrangements were made for Johal to go shopping with the wife
and daughter of Talwinder Singh Parmar, the suspected mastermind of
the Air India bombings that killed 331 people on June 23, 1985.
Johal, the sister of Avtar Singh Narwal, a member of the Babbar Khalsa
terrorist group, said she doesn't remember that.
She maintains she, Narwal and Narwal's young daughter drove to Vancouver
from Kamloops to shop on Friday, June 21, 1985, arriving in the evening.
She says the trio stopped at Parmar's suburban Burnaby house for a
visit, leaving after dark to stay at a relative's apartment.
Spies from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service were staking
out Parmar's house that night and reported they saw Bagri's yellow vehicle
outside the residence. They said they saw a man, woman and child arrive,
but believed the man was not Bagri.
Upon returning to Kamloops on the afternoon of June 23, Johal learned
of the Air India bombing that same day.
Bombs packed in suitcases exploded within an hour of each other on
opposite sides of the globe. One destroyed Air India Flight 182 off
the Irish Coast, killing all 329 people on board. The other killed two
baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita airport.
The Crown alleges Bagri, who worked at a Kamloops plywood mill, was
in the Vancouver area, based on statements to the police by a former
female friend of Bagri's whose identity is protected by a court order.
That woman told investigators Bagri visited her Vancouver basement
suite late on June 21, 1985, and asked to borrow her car to leave some
bags at the airport.