Woman petrified of Air India suspect

A key witness in the Air India bombing investigation told police she was so scared of retribution, she would rather kill herself than testify against suspect Ajaib Singh Bagri, the Ottawa inquiry into the terrorist plot heard Monday.
The woman, identified only as Ms. E because of a court-ordered ban on her name, provided Willy Laurie of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service critical information linking Bagri to the bombing plot but said she was afraid to cooperate with the RCMP.
Laurie, who later left CSIS to work for the RCMP, told Commissioner John Major there was widespread fear in B.C.'s Sikh community that people would be in danger if they talked to the RCMP in the mass murder probe.
That was certainly the case for Ms. E, who Laurie said described to him on several occasions how Bagri had come to her house the night before two bomb-laden suitcases were checked in at Vancouver International Airport and tagged for two Air India flights. The resulting blasts on June 23, 1985 killed 331.
Bagri had asked to borrow her car to go to the airport, the inquiry heard, allegedly telling the woman: "The thing I am going to do today is very important ... our bags are going, but we are not going anywhere, but if we get caught, you won't see me anymore."
Laurie recounted to Major how he first visited the woman on Sept. 10, 1987 because she was on a list of donors to the terrorist Babbar Khalsa, the group to which Bagri belonged.
She only agreed to talk to him after he stressed that CSIS was different than the police and that he could protect her identity and not compel her to go to court.
Within minutes she had collapsed in a heap on the floor, sobbing and recounting how she believed Bagri had been involved in the terrorist killings.
"She said the next day when she saw the news that she knew he was the one who did it," Laurie testified.
While she wanted justice for the Air India victims, she believed Bagri would kill her and her family is she ever passed on her information to police, the inquiry heard.
Laurie said she threatened suicide several times, which was reflected in an RCMP note of a meeting with the woman and Laurie in October 1990.
15/10/07 Kim Bolan/CanWest News Service/Canada.com, Canada

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