Vancouver, November 5, 2004
The Sun

A Crown expert who testified that the bomb that brought down Air India Flight 182 was in a cargo hold that contained a Vancouver suitcase is far more credible than a defence expert who claimed the bomb was in a Toronto bag a metre away, prosecutor Robert Wright argued Thursday.

Wright urged Justice Ian Bruce Josephson to accept the testimony of Professor Christopher Peel, who oversaw a partial reconstruction of the recovered wreckage of the Boeing 747.

Wright said Peel is a metallurgical specialist who has much more experience in determining what happens to an aircraft when a bomb on board detonates during flight.

"At the end of the day, we say there should not be a reasonable doubt about the location of the bomb," Wright said on the fourth day of the Crown's closing arguments.

The defence expert, a former colleague of Peel named Edward Trimble, is a general air accident investigator who called on Peel to determine the location of the bomb that brought down a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, Wright said.

"There are many examples throughout Dr. Trimble's testimony where he is outside of, or beyond, his expertise as a general accident investigator and clearly in error, having misunderstood or misapplied key principles relating to the effects of bombs on airplanes," Wright said.

The different opinions on the location of the bomb have been used at the trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri to bolster the theories of both Crown and defence.

Defence lawyers have argued that if Trimble is correct and the bomb was in cargo hold 51, it would have been inside a suitcase that originated in Toronto. But Wright said Peel's careful analysis of the crack directions in recovered pieces of the plane pinpoint the bomb to a spot inside cargo hold 52, which contained the only suitcase transferred from a Vancouver flight onto the Air India flight.

Wright said Peel's conclusions are also consistent with the other circumstantial evidence that two tickets were purchased by a single caller for two Air India flights heading in opposite directions around the globe. In both cases, the ticket holders -- L. Singh flying via Japan and M. Singh flying via Toronto -- checked in suitcases on the connecting flights out of Vancouver, but failed to board the plane. And in both cases, bombs exploded, killing 331 people in all.

The first blast went off at Tokyo's Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers transferring a suitcase from Vancouver to an Air India flight. About 54 minutes later, Air India Flight 182, en route from Toronto to India, exploded off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 aboard.

Neither of the two Singhs ever applied for a refund for their unused ticket, Wright said.

"Professor Peel's opinion concerning the bomb location of baggage area 52 is the only credible location," Wright said. "Furthermore, Professor Peel's expert evidence regarding the location of the bomb corroborates the already irrefutably strong link established between the M. Singh bag and the Narita bomb."

Wright said Trimble was defensive on the witness stand when confronted during cross-examination about inconsistencies in his testimony.

He admitted several times that he did not have the specific expertise in bomb damage that Peel has, Wright said.

Trimble also said on the stand that he didn't do a detailed analysis of the pieces of the plane that were identified but remain on the ocean floor.

"Dr. Trimble acknowledged, somewhat reluctantly, he doesn't have bomb expertise," Wright said. "Professor Peel is overwhelmingly better qualified."

Peel was involved in controlled explosions of plane fuselages to determine the type of damage that occurs, Wright said.

"The good news for society is that bombs don't go off on airplanes very often," Wright commented.

But the rarity of the event creates a problem for scientists wanting to study the phenomenon, he said.

Wright also acknowledged again the courageous efforts of the hundreds of people who raced to the scene of the Air India disaster in fishing boats, coast guard vessels and large ships.

Several of them testified last year about the grisly efforts to recover as many bodies from the Air India wreckage as possible while battling high seas. The remains of just 132 of 329 passengers were found.

"These few international witnesses remind us of the horror and tragedy of this terrible act on innocent men, women and children . . . ." Wright said.