Air India witness didn't fear for safety, officer testifies

A key witness the RCMP wanted to testify in the Air India bombing case never told police about any specific threats or concerns she had over her safety, the Ottawa inquiry into the terrorist plot heard Wednesday.
Still, the RCMP visited the woman, dubbed Ms. E, after newspaper publisher Tara Singh Hayer was gunned down in November, 1998, to see if she wanted extra security, RCMP Insp. Doug Best told Commissioner John Major.
Best, who was screened by a white curtain, said he made frequent approaches to Ms. E between 1996 and 2004 to see if he could allay her security concerns about testifying against Ajaib Singh Bagri at the terrorism trial.
Hayer had agreed to be a witness against Bagri when he was gunned down in the garage of his Surrey, B.C., home.
Best said the RCMP later did extra patrols around the woman's house, but that she did not take police up on an offer for additional security.
At one point during a December, 1996, interview with the woman, Best told her that Bagri's group, the Babbar Khalsa, was no longer a powerful force.
"In all sincerity, we feel the threat from them, as a group, is minimal, minimal, minimal, because they do not have the infrastructure in place that they once had. Their day has come and their day has gone from a political perspective," Best told Ms. E.
Years earlier, when Ms. E first disclosed to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that she had incriminating evidence against Bagri, she told CSIS agent Willy Laurie that Bagri would kill her and her children if she went to court.
She also told Laurie, who later relayed the information to police, that she would kill herself before being forced to testify against Bagri, who she said had visited her home on the eve of the bombing to borrow her car to take some luggage to the airport.
Ms. E provided detailed information to Laurie because she was told her identity would remain secret. But she later gave the RCMP conflicting information when she realized she could be compelled to testify.
"I think there was a general reluctance period. I'm sure she would have loved for this all to have gone away," Best said.
17/10/07 Kim Bolan/CanWest News/ServiceVancouver Sun/National Post, Canada

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