RCMP ruled out key suspect in Air India bombing

Ottawa: The RCMP ruled out a man suspected of plotting terrorist acts in other countries as a suspect in the Air India bombing after interviewing him in 1992, a public inquiry has heard.
There has been speculation for years that Lal Singh, who had ties to the International Sikh Youth Federation, may have been one of the couriers who delivered two bomb-laden suitcases that killed more than 300 people.
But Insp. Jim Cunningham testified Tuesday that the Mounties never uncovered any hard evidence linking him to the 1985 downing of Air India Flight 182, or a second blast the same day at Narita airport in Japan.
The RCMP finally managed to speak to Singh seven years after the attacks, when he was arrested in India on terrorism charges unrelated to the bombings.
The Mounties suspected he may have been roughed up by Indian police during their initial interrogation. But Cunningham said he and an RCMP colleague took care to ensure their own interview was conducted in a way that would meet all the legal tests in Canada.
Nevertheless, they didn't have a totally free hand since Indian police insisted on being present for the questioning. That meant, for example, that the Mounties couldn't ask Singh directly whether he'd been tortured.
"That was a question that I felt would have been inappropriate,'' Cunningham told the inquiry headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major.
"He would remain in custody after I left. If he was in fact poorly treated beforehand, there was a possibility that he would have been afterwards.''
In the interview, a transcript of which was tabled Tuesday, Singh denied any role in the bombing and his interrogators apparently took him at his word.
They had come up with no independent proof to the contrary over the previous seven years. And a Vancouver airline agent who checked in the suspect baggage on the day of the blast couldn't identify Singh in a lineup.
25/09/07 The Canadian Press/CTV.ca, Canada

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