Sikh probe took wrong turn after Duncan blast

The investigation into Sikh extremists could have taken a "completely different turn" if CSIS agents had believed a 1985 blast in Duncan, B.C., involved explosives and not guns, a former CSIS agent told the Air India inquiry on Thursday.
Raymond Kobzey said he likely would have focused further on suspected Air India mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar if he had known there was a possibility he tested an explosive device in the woods outside Duncan on June 4, 1985.
"Reflecting on this 21 years later, we would have treated the loud noise differently," Kobzey testified at the inquiry into the downing of Air India Flight 182.
Following the disaster, Kobzey said CSIS immediately notified RCMP that there could be a connection with the Duncan blast site. The RCMP sent an explosives sniffing dog to the site on June 28, where evidence of explosives was found.
"The significance of the Duncan blast came home to me at that moment," he said.
The flight exploded off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on board. It had stopped in Montreal after leaving Toronto, headed for London's Heathrow Airport and then India. The explosives — allegedly planted by Sikh extremists — were loaded in Vancouver.
On the day of the Duncan incident, Inderjit Singh Reyat — the only person convicted in the bombing — took Parmar to the woods on Vancouver Island and demonstrated his ability to detonate an explosive.
CSIS agents, who had been trailing Parmar since early June because of his activism in the Sikh extremist community, followed the two men into the woods, but couldn't get close enough to see what caused the loud bang. The agents involved — Larry Lowe and Lynn Macadams — said they were greatly startled by the loud blast.
Lowe testified during Reyat's 1990 trial that he believed the loud bang was caused by a rifle and that he had searched the area for shells and shell casings.
Kobzey, who gained explosives experience while serving with the U.S. marines in Vietnam before joining CSIS, left for a two-week sailing vacation four days later, on June 8. He said that likely wouldn't have happened if the possibility of an explosion had been raised.
24/05/07 CBC News/CBC British Columbia, Canada

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