Reyat perjury trial set for January

Vancouver: Convicted Air India bomber Inderjit Singh Reyat will go on trial next January on a charge he perjured himself while testifying as a Crown witness against two other men accused in the deadly airline bombings.
Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm of B.C. Supreme Court set Jan. 19 for the start of the trial, which is expected to last four weeks. A jury selection hearing will take place Jan. 12.
Mr. Reyat, the only man ever convicted in the 1985 Air India plot, has been in one form of custody or another since he was first arrested in February, 1988 while living in Britain.
Last month, Mr. Reyat finished a five-year sentence for manslaughter after pleading guilty in 2003 to supplying materials for the bomb that brought down Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985.
The blast killed 329 passengers, most of them Canadians, and the jumbo jet's crew in the worst single act of aerial terrorism before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Before that, Mr. Reyat served a 10-year sentence for manslaughter in the deaths of two baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita airport who were killed in a near simultaneous explosion.
After his latest sentence ended, the Crown ordered Mr. Reyat held on the perjury charge and he was transferred from a federal prison to a provincial jail.
04/03/08 Steve Mertl/The Canadian Press/Globe and Mail

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Categories: Air India - International Mar 2008, Foreign Mar 2008, Safety Mar 2008