Relatives of Air India victims revisit lost innocence

Terrorist act, mass murder, intelligence failure – the Air India tragedy has come to mean many things to Canadians since Flight 182 was bombed out of the sky off the Irish coast nearly 25 years ago.
To the youngest relatives of the 329 people killed, Air India meant little beyond a death in the family, as they grieved and got on with their lives. But as decades passed and questions piled up, they too joined the waiting line for answers.
Answers, as well as recognition that this was a crime hatched on home soil that claimed Canadian victims, have been a long time coming. Years of criminal investigation have yielded just one conviction, for manslaughter, against a B.C. mechanic who assembled bomb components. Two other B.C. men were acquitted of murder.
More answers are expected Thursday, as Justice John Major releases his report from a long-sought federal inquiry. The probe, called in 2006, examined Canada’s response to terrorism and aviation security, and how government agencies, such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, share information.
Still, questions about who exactly was responsible for the Air India bombing are likely to remain long after Thursday.
As they await the release of the inquiry report, three young Canadians who lost loved ones on June 23, 1985, talk about grief, hope and growing up in the shadow of the worst terrorist act in the country’s history.
16/06/10 Anthony Reinhart/The Globe and Mail, Canada

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Categories: Air India - International Jun 2010, Foreign Jun 2010, NACIL Jun 2010, Safety Jun 2010