Air India defence wants Crown prosecutors to testify

 


VANCOUVER, April 02,2004- A lawyer representing one of the accused in the Air India trial in Vancouver, wants to call two Crown lawyers to give evidence.

Richard Peck, who's representing Ajaib Singh Bagri, is expected to ask the B.C. Supreme Court to grant an order to subpoena the two prosecutors.

Dozens of witnesses with connections to the accused bombers have given testimony since the Air India trial began last April. Now defence lawyers want to hear evidence from prosecutors in the case.

Peck is expected to make his motion on Friday, asking that Margaret Mereigh and Mitch Dufresne be ordered to testify. Mereigh and Dufresne are junior counsel on the prosecution team.

On Thursday, Peck told the court he wants to question them about the notes they took concerning a witness named Narinder Singh Gill. The notes are from a meeting prosecutors had with Gill last July to prepare him for the trial.

Peck claims the information contained in the notes is inconsistent with the evidence Gill gave in court.

Gill is a Crown witness who testified last October.

In the 1980s Gill had ties to Babbar Khalsa and the International Sikh Youth Federation. Both groups are on the federal government's list of terrorist organizations.

Gill gave testimony linking both defendants to a meeting of Sikhs in Seattle around the time of the 1985 Air India bombings.