Bartleman 'misled' Air India victims' families, inquiry told

A former official with the federal wiretapping service disputed explosive testimony given earlier by former Ontario lieutenant-governor James Bartleman, telling the Air India inquiry Thursday that he never saw a report suggesting Flight 182 would be targeted that weekend.
When the plane was bombed in June 1985, Bartleman was in charge of the intelligence analysis and security branch of Foreign Affairs. In May, he told the inquiry that in the days before the bombing, he had shown a senior RCMP official a document suggesting a flight would be targeted on the weekend that Air India flight was bombed. He said the RCMP official told him he knew about it.
But Pierre Lecompte, a former official with the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) who intercepted calls in the days before the bombing, told the inquiry in Ottawa on Thursday that the RCMP would have been relying on CSE wiretapping reports and that he had never seen a report with that information.
"Mr. Bartleman misled the families of the victims and the commission," Lecompte said. "It's unfortunate that I am here six months after the [testimony]."
As well, Lecompte said he has since spoke to CSE officials and searched the electronic archives of reports — which span back to the 1970s — and he couldn't find a record of the report Bartleman referred to.
06/12/07 CBC Toronto, Canada

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Categories: Air India - International Dec 2007, Foreign Dec 2007, NACIL Dec 2007, Safety Dec 2007