Jury trials preferable in terror cases, says Air India judge

Ottawa: Rulings in high-profile terrorism trials have a better chance of winning public approval if they're delivered by juries rather than by judges, says the jurist who sparked a storm by acquitting two men in the Air India bombing.
"I would have loved a jury trial to have made the factual findings in that case," Justice Ian Josephson of B.C. Supreme Court told an academic conference Monday.
"I think there's better acceptance of a verdict from a jury in the community, whether they convict or acquit. But that was out of my hands."
Josephson presided over the case of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri after the two men, who had initially chosen to put their fates in the hands of a jury, changed their minds and opted instead for trial by a judge sitting alone.
Both defendants were acquitted of a range of charges, including first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, after Josephson concluded the testimony of some key witnesses wasn't credible and the Crown hadn't proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The verdict in March 2005 was greeted with outrage by the families of the bombing victims. The resulting furor helped pave the way for the appointment of a public inquiry under former Supreme Court justice John Major, who is currently reviewing all aspects of the 1985 terrorist attack.
Much of the inquiry's mandate centres on the actions of the RCMP, CSIS and federal transport regulators. But Major is also charged with deciding whether the laws governing terrorist prosecutions need to be changed, and whether future cases should be heard by panels of three judges rather than a single jurist.
Josephson has been reluctant to speak publicly on such matters since he found Malik and Bagri not guilty and refused a request for an interview Monday.
But in his remarks to the conference, organized jointly by the Federal Court of Canada and Carleton University, he acknowledged there were times during the trial when the work load "began to feel overwhelming."
12/06/07 Jim Brown/Canadian Press/Canada.com, Canada

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Categories: Air India Jun 2007, Foreign Jun 2007, Safety Jun 2007