Fresh evidence sparks debate over Air India probe

Ottawa: Fresh evidence at the Air India inquiry suggests a better effort by Canadian police, intelligence and transport officials could have averted the 1985 bombing that took 329 lives, say lawyers for the victims' families.
But the federal government insists it's not the job of the inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court judge John Major, to point fingers at anyone for past mistakes.
The federal legal team is urging Major to concentrate on forward-looking recommendations to bolster future anti-terrorism efforts.
The renewed debate was sparked by the release of documents delivered to the inquiry by government officials last fall but only made public Thursday.
They provide additional details indicating that Transport Canada conducted only minimal monitoring of Air India's security arrangements in the months leading up to the bombing.
Other documents suggest Air India managers themselves were confused about some security measures the day ill-fated Flight 182 left Toronto, later to be downed off the coast of Ireland by a terrorist bomb.
The documents also buttress previous evidence showing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was hindered by a bureaucratic "quagmire" in its efforts to tap the phones of suspected Sikh extremists prior to the bombing.
"What we're seeing in these documents is a validation and a confirmation of what some of our hunches were," said Jacques Shore, one of the lawyers for the victims' families.
Written submissions to the inquiry by Shore and co-counsel Norm Boxall urged Major not to shy away from finding an "intelligence failure" on the part of CSIS -- as well as "institutional failure" by the RCMP and Transport Canada and "corporate failure" by Air India.
That raised the hackles of Barney Brucker, the chief federal lawyer at the inquiry.
In his own written brief, Brucker played down the significance of the new documents, saying they dealt with issues already aired during 17 months of public hearings.
Among the main points in the new material were:
-- An admission that Transport Canada's monitoring of Air India's security plan at Pearson Airport in Toronto was limited, in part because of a shortage of staff and resources.
-- A conclusion by an RCMP investigator who interviewed Air India managers that there was confusion and miscommunication about who was ultimately in charge of security and other decisions the day Flight 182 departed the city.
-- Additional evidence that training was inadequate for personnel at Burns Security, the company hired by Air India to screen passengers and luggage.
-- Confirmation that training was inadequate as well for some CSIS personnel who prepared legal applications for wiretap warrants. It took five months to obtain judicial permission to tap the phone of Talwinder Singh Parmar, the suspected ringleader of the bomb plot.
-- More evidence of bureaucratic in-fighting between CSIS and the RCMP, including a memo from a senior CSIS officer accusing the Mounties of unwarranted attacks on the competence of the security service.
-- A 1980 report indicating international air security experts had already identified bomb attacks as a major emerging threat -- contrary to assertions by some Canadian officials that hijacking was still perceived as the main danger when Flight 182 went down five years later.
12/02/09 The Canadian Press/CTV.ca, Canada

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Categories: Air India - International Feb 2009, Foreign Feb 2009, NACIL Feb 2009, Safety Feb 2009