Dosanjh aghast at RCMP contradictions on Air India

Ottawa: Testimony by a policeman who says his bomb-sniffing dog could have prevented the Air India disaster is one of a series of revelations suggesting a 23-year "coverup" of sheer incompetence, Vancouver Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said Wednesday.
Dosanjh found it "astounding and horrifying" that the RCMP had reported to Bob Rae during the former Ontario premier's earlier review of the tragedy that dog-sniffing procedures were followed properly, contrary to ex-police officer Serge Carignan's testimony Wednesday at the Air India inquiry that the plane had already taken off when he and his dog turned up to search for explosives.
Flight 182 exploded, killing 329 people in June 1985.
Contradictory testimony, missing documents and attempts to discredit a key witness who says he saw an advance warning of the bomb - Ontario Lt.-Gov. James Bartleman - have "the makings of a coverup," Dosanjh told reporters.
Dosanjh was a lawyer and human rights activist who fought publicly against Sikh extremism in the 1980s. A few months before the bombing, he was beaten severely by presumed extremists. No one was ever convicted.
Dosanjh expressed shock and disappointment about the possibility that the RCMP provided what he called a false report that dog sniffing had been done during Rae's review in 2005-06.
"For the RCMP to provide a report to Bob Rae to say all of that was done, that which was never done? That's astounding. That's horrifying that a police force of which I have been proud as a Canadian ever since I came to this country in 1968, would make a report that would be false."
10/05/07 Juliet O'Neill, CanWest News Service/Canada.com, Canada

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