Key witness willing to change story, Air-India trial hears



VANCOUVER, August 10, 2004
By ROBERT MATAS
Globe and Mail

A key prosecution witness at the Air-India trial offered to change his testimony if the defence coached him on what to say, the court heard yesterday. The witness also offered to disappear before testifying if the defence paid him, the international terrorism trial was told.

The prosecution witness has provided some of the most important evidence in the case against defendant Ajaib Singh Bagri. He testified earlier this year that Mr. Bagri told him he was part of the Air-India conspiracy responsible for killing 331 people in 1985.

The RCMP paid him $300,000 (U.S.) after he agreed to testify, but a court order prohibits the media from publishing any information that could identify the witness.

The defence suggested yesterday the witness made statements during conversations with Kamal Jit that raised doubts about the reliability of his court testimony. Mr. Jit and the witness are long-time acquaintance from India who renewed their relationship after both immigrated to the United States.

The witness told Mr. Jit, a 48-year-old New York cab driver, that he was repeatedly asked about the Air-India disaster when he was a leader of a Sikh separatist group in 1985, Mr. Jit recalled. He asked Mr. Bagri about who was responsible for the bomb blasts. Mr. Bagri suggested he deflect the persistent questioning by shifting the blame.

"If people ask you, you say, 'We did it.' You tell them, 'Why [are] you bothering me?' If people [keep] asking you, you say, 'We did it.' " Mr. Jit recalled the witness quoting Mr. Bagri as saying.

The prosecution has told the court that Mr. Bagri's comments were in effect an admission of his involvement in the Air-India plot.

The defence, however, suggested the prosecution was reading too much into the comments.

Mr. Jit said the witness told him in a conversation in October of 2003 that he did not anticipate his statements about Mr. Bagri would be so important in the trial.

He told Mr. Jit that he was under stress, "in fear" of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, when he initially spoke to the authorities. He did not elaborate on why he was afraid of the FBI, Mr. Jit said.

But once he made his statement to the authorities, he could not change what he said.

"It was a small thing. I did not know it [would be] blown up so much," Mr. Jit recalled the witness saying. "Now I cannot go back."

He could, however, "run away from this place" before testifying at the Air-India trial if the Bagri family gave him some money, Mr. Jit recalled the witness saying.

Or he could change his testimony, Mr. Jit said.

The witness asked Mr. Jit to convey a message to Mr. Bagri's lawyers. Ask the lawyers how he should testify so that Mr. Bagri "could be saved," Mr. Jit recounted the witness saying.

The witness believed that Mr. Bagri was innocent, Mr. Jit also said.

Mr. Jit's testimony marked the resumption of the trial after a two-week summer break. After 30 minutes of testimony, however, the court adjourned until tomorrow to allow the prosecution to prepare its cross-examination.

Prosecutor Richard Cairns told the court he needed time to allow the FBI to look into Mr. Jit's testimony. Defence lawyer Richard Peck objected to the delay.

Mr. Cairns knew about Mr. Jit for months, Mr. Peck said. Mr. Jit told the court that Mr. Cairns, accompanied by an FBI officer and an RCMP officer, went to New York in May to speak to him.

Mr. Peck said Mr. Cairns also went to India earlier this year while working on his response to Mr. Jit's evidence. Mr. Peck questioned some people about the kidnapping of Mr. Jit's son in the early 1990s, he said.

The multimillion-dollar trial began on April 28, 2003. Mr. Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik are charged with murder in the deaths of 329 people killed on June 23, 1985, in a bomb explosion aboard an Air-India flight from Canada, and the deaths in a bomb blast of two baggage handlers at Tokyo's airport killed 54 minutes earlier.

The prosecution alleges the bombs were put on airplanes in Vancouver by a group of Canadian-based Sikh terrorists seeking revenge against the Indian government.