Vancouver: One of the two men acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombings is suing federal and provincial justice officials for damages and legal costs, saying his charter rights were violated by the failed prosecution.
Ajaib Singh Bagri filed a notice of civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday over his arrest and trial for murder in the deaths of 329 people killed in the June 23, 1985, bombing of Flight 182 and another explosion the same day killed two baggage handlers at Tokyo's airport.
"During the plaintiff's trial, the plaintiff spent his own funds and borrowed funds to defend himself prior to the Attorney General of British Columbia funding his defence," says the claim, filed in Kamloops, B.C., where Bagri lives.
The lawsuit claims Bagri's charter rights were violated because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service destroyed recordings of intercepted conversations and a witness interview.
It points out that in 1985, CSIS was intercepting the private communications of Talwinder Singh Parmar, but those intercepts were later destroyed by CSIS and no copies were kept. Parmar, considered the mastermind of the plot, was killed in a shootout with Indian police in Punjab in 1992.
"The destruction of the Parmar intercepts was unacceptable negligence on the part of CSIS and the government of Canada," says the claim.
In 1987, it says, the agency interviewed a witness but notes and audiotapes of that interview were also destroyed and no copies were kept. This, too, was "unacceptable negligence."
17/03/11 CTV News
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