RCMP wants to take Air India investigation overseas

Vancouver: The RCMP’s Air India Task Force has asked the Indian government for permission to visit the South Asian country to further the criminal investigation into the June 1985 bombing, CanWest News Service has learned.
Insp. Lloyde Plante confirmed Friday that investigators met with Indian government representatives in Canada this week to update them on the ongoing criminal probe.
Plante said the criminal case is active, despite the acquittals two years ago of key suspects Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri.
Several other suspects, including people in India and England, were identified as unindicted co-conspirators during the 19-month trial of Malik and Bagri that ended with not guilty verdicts in March 2005.
Plante stressed the planned trip to India has nothing to do with recent news reports about an alleged confession by suspected mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar, founder of the Babbar Khalsa terrorist group, while he was being interrogated in Punjab in October 1992.
“This trip, frankly, had been planned well in advance of the news reports,” Plante said.
Parmar’s statements were widely published after an Indian magazine last week said former Punjab police officer Harmail Singh Chandi had been prepared to testify at the Air India inquiry about the circumstances surrounding Parmar’s in-custody death and the fact that Parmar supposedly confessed and implicated other Sikh separatist leaders.
10/08/07 Kim Bolan/CanWest News Service/Vancouver Sun/Canada.com, Canada

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

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