Feds nixed early call for Air India inquiry: lawyer

Ottawa: The watchdog monitoring Canada’s spy service wanted to hold an inquiry in 1989 into the agency’s conduct in the Air India bombing, but was shut down by the federal government.
Ron Atkey, a prominent lawyer who chaired the Security Intelligence Review Committee, revealed at the Air India inquiry Thursday he wanted major concerns about related to CSIS such as tape erasures to be investigated.
But Atkey said the government was not in favour of the inquiry because of the on-going Air India criminal case as well as an unfolding lawsuit by victims’ families.
“The committee wanted to look at the overall performance of CSIS at the time,” Atkey explained.
As early as January 1988, SIRC was drafting rules to hold an inquiry into how the Air India bombing took place despite the fact that CSIS had been following some of the key suspects beforehand.
But by January 1989, top officials within the solicitor general’s drafted several letters urging SIRC not to proceed until after one of the accused, Inderjit Singh Reyat, stood trial in a related bombing.
“It’s a sobering experience when the deputy attorney general comes to you and says, ‘Speaking on behalf of the government of Canada, including the commissioner of the RCMP, we don’t think you should undertake this inquiry at this time for this and this reason,’ “ said Atkey, a former MP and federal immigration minister.
Atkey said another reason stated by government officials was the civil suit filed by victims’ families that had not been completed in 1989.
If too much information was disclosed publicly through an inquiry, “it might cost the government more money,” Atkey said.
That public revelation outraged Norm Boxall, a lawyer for the Air India victims’ families.
Afterwards, he said it is shocking if the government delayed having an inquiry to limit the cash settlements paid to suffering families.
20/09/07 Kim Bolan/CanWest News Service/Canada.com

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Categories: Air India - International Sep 2007, Foreign Sep 2007, Safety Sep 2007