VANCOUVER, November 9, 2004
CP

An accused bomber threatened witnesses, telling them to keep their mouths shut about his involvement in an airline attack that killed 331 people, a Crown prosecutor said in closing arguments Tuesday.

``Do not talk to anybody about the conversation that took place between us,'' Ripudaman Singh Malik told a man he allegedly asked to take suitcases to the Vancouver airport, Joe Bellows told the court.

Malik is accused of conspiring to have bomb-laden bags smuggled onto two Air India flights. The plot, the Crown says, was to blow two planes out of the sky at the same time, while they travelled on opposite sides of the globe.

One downed Air India flight 182 off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on board. The second went off prematurely, Bellows said, killing two baggage handlers in Tokyo's Narita airport.

Two witnesses told the trial that Malik tried to recruit them to deliver the bags. Both said no.

After the blast, one of the men received a threatening phone call.

The witness, who can't be named under a court order, said the caller spoke in a ``threatening tone, more like a warning,'' and said ``the work was done, don't open your mouth.''

Malik was worried the man would tell the police what he had asked him to do, Bellows said.

``If it was an innocent conversation, he wouldn't have been worried,'' Bellows said as he outlined Malik's behaviour after the bombing, which he says are obviously the actions of a guilty man.

Further to the alleged threats, another witness testified Malik told him to forget that he ever picked him up after he allegedly attended a test blast with admitted bomb-maker Inderjit Singh Reyat.

Bellows also pointed to evidence that suggests Malik was providing financial assistance to Reyat and his family.

Malik, a Vancouver businessman, and Ajaib Singh Bagri, a Kamloops sawmill worker, are accused of murder and conspiracy in the Air India bombings.

The closing arguments against Malik are expected to run for the rest of the week, before the Crown takes its final aim at Bagri.