Evidence complete, hijack case now set for final arguments

Patiala: With evidence completed today, the Indian Airlines plane hijacking case would now come up for final arguments before the designated court constituted under the Anti-Hijacking Act from April 17, on a day-to-day basis.
As many as 125 witnesses have already been examined in the case by the designated court of Inderjeet Singh, District and Sessions Judge. Of these, 120 were prosecution witnesses and the remaining five defence witnesses.
The prosecution had earlier put forth a list of 325 witnesses, but the remaining were excluded after examining 120 witnesses.
During the hearing today, aeronautical expert Amrik Singh Bal, who was presented as defence witness, was examined. He stated before the court that it was not possible to fly a domestic flight to an international destination, through four countries, as the pilot does not carry international maps.
He said the recording in the spool at the ATC tower could be tampered with, but the recordings in the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder (black box) could not be tampered with at a later stage.
While the CBI has already presented before the court various prosecution witnesses who confirmed that the IC-814 was hijacked and taken to Kandhar.
10/04/07 Sanjeev Chopra/Chandigarh Newsline

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Categories: Foreign Apr 2007, Indian Apr 2007, Safety Apr 2007