Officials knew who blew up Air India, inquiry hears

Canada's law enforcement agencies knew who blew up Air India Flight 182 right after the catastrophe on June 23, 1985, in which 329 died, a retired Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent told the judicial inquiry Thursday.
Bill Turner, who spent 20 years investigating Sikh extremists in Canada, said the real problem was getting people who would be prepared to testify against the terrorist conspirators.
"Air India really was solved the day it went down. It was the gathering of evidence afterwards (that was the problem,)" Turner told Commissioner John Major in candid testimony.
"We knew the perpetrators were (Talwinder Singh) Parmar, (Ajaib Singh) Bagri, (Ripudaman Singh) Malik - the usuals. The only people who weren't known within a week of the bombing going down were who actually put the bags on the plane and who bought the tickets. So there were three or four persons who weren't known."
Turner said CSIS had much more background working within the Sikh community at the time, despite problems with the agency being only 11 months old in June 1985 and without many policies.
He said there was a feeling among B.C.'s CSIS agents that "if left to go they could identify those four or five others" involved in the Air India bombing plot.
Turner shot down many theories that have been floated for years in the case - that Parmar was an Indian government agent, or that another suspect named Surjan Singh Gill backed out at the last minute because he was a CSIS agent.
"I think Surjan Singh Gill realized what was going to happen and didn't want to be a part of it," Turner said.
"Mr. Parmar was working for the Babbar Khalsa and had no connection - no connection - with the government of India."
Turner said, however, that he never believed the official Indian story that Parmar was killed in a shootout in October 1992, but heard almost immediately from sources that he had died in custody.
25/10/07 Kim Bolan/CanWest News Service/Canada.com, Canada

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

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