Ripudiman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri have both been found not guilty of all eight criminal charges connected to a pair of deadly blasts directed at Air India airliners in 1985.
According to reporters watching proceedings in a Vancouver courtroom Wednesday afternoon, Justice Ian Josephson said he believed the prosecution theory that both bombs had originated in Vancouver.
But in his verdict, the B.C. Supreme Court judge said he could not abandon his committment to a basic legal test.
"Despite the horrific nature of the alleged crimes, there can be no lowering of the standard of proof from that required in any criminal trial," he said, criticizing the strength of evidence the prosecution presented to support their case.
Bagri's lawyer Michael Code told reporters after the verdict: "There was a complete absence of any hard evidence. No forensic evidence, no contemporaneous evidence, and then it turned on the weakness of the after-the-fact evidence."
Alleged confessions from the Crown's key witnesses -- including a former employee of Malik known as Ms. D -- failed to support their arguments, the judge said.
Not only was their testimony unreliable, Josephson said they were often contradictory and therefore not credible.
He added that evidence provided by Ms. D -- that she still loves and respects Malik and was betraying him by testifying -- was unbelievable from such a strong, intelligent woman.
"That surprise edges toward incredulity," said the judge. "She has not been truthful with court and I am unable to rely on her evidence."
Bagri responds
Bagri's youngest daughter, Inderdip Kaur, read a statement outside the court on behalf of her father as he stood next to her.
"The past four and a half years have been very difficult for me and my family. I have been accused of horrendous crimes and have been in prison for over four years while these charges were before the court," she read from the prepared statement.
"In 1985 when these terrible events occurred, I was a passionate advocate for an independent homeland for the Sikh people. I want to repeat publicly today . . . that I had absolutely no involvement in any of these criminal activities. The loss of so many innocent lives, resulting from these events, is an enormous tragedy. . . . "
"It is my hope that the completion of these legal proceedings will now allow healing to begin."
Malik did not utter a word to reporters as he was escorted into a car outside the court.
Calls for appeal
It's been widely speculated that an appeal of the verdict will be launched in a higher court.
At an Ottawa news conference Wednesday, Conservative Leader Harper called today's verdict a "sad reminder for many that there is still a feeling that justice had not been done."
He urged the government of B.C. to closely examine the judge's ruling and to determine if there are any avenues of appeal.
Crown Counsel spokesperson Geoff Gaul said at a 1 p.m. PT news conference that "It's premature to say at this stage what will transpire, except that senior crown counsel will be reviewing the reasons for judgment before making any decision with respect to launching an appeal or not."
Code and Bagri's lead lawyer Richard Peck said they doubt there will be an appeal, saying it's hard to see that the judge made any errors in law and that the case was decided on the basis of credibility and the facts.
'Too soon' to discuss public inquiry
Many calls have also been made for an inquiry into the investigation -- in particular, whether the government took threats of a bombing seriously enough after India's army stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984, angering many Sikhs worldwide.
When Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan met reporters in Edmonton Wednesday afternoon, she said it would be premature to comment on the possibility of a public inquiry.
"It is way too soon for me at this point, or anyone else in the federal government of Canada, to say anything about whether there would be any use, 20 years later, of a public inquiry," said McLellan.
Harper said that failing an appeal and a successful prosecution in the end, "It's essential there be a public inquiry into the facts of the investigation."
Judge Josephson also directed harsh criticism at the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service for its "unacceptably negligent" destruction of evidence that might have directly linked the accused to the blasts.
Josephson's verdict comes -- after 233 trial days and 115 witnesses -- nearly 20 years after 331 people died in a pair of blasts targeting Air India airliners.
Reporting from the steps of the Vancouver court, CTV reporter Todd Battis said that Josephson's ruling leaves those who have been waiting years without the answers they had hoped for.
"On the question of who planted the bombs," Battis said, "We're no closer to finding that out than we were twenty years ago."
While the dozens of victims' relatives who packed the courtroom couldn't hide their dismay with the verdict, there was relief from the other side.
"The initial thoughts as you can image, from family members of Mr. Malik, are overjoyed," Battis noted. "They feel vindicated today."
Senseless Act
Addressing the heavily-guarded Vancouver courtroom packed with reporters and relatives of both victims and the accused, Justice Josephson prefaced his ruling Wednesday with some of his thoughts on the case.
"Words are incapable of adequately conveying the senseless horror of these crimes," Josephson said.
The hundreds of passengers and crew who perished as a result, he added, "were entirely innocent victims of a diabolical act of terrorism unparalleled until recently in aviation history and finding its roots in fanaticism at its basest and most inhumane level."
The two B.C. residents, Malik, 58, and Bagri, 55, were charged in Oct. 2000, almost 15 years after a mid-air bomb blast sent the Mumbai-bound Flight 182 hurtling from 31,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland.
All 329 passengers and crew, including more than 80 children, were killed.
Less than an hour earlier, at Tokyo, Japan's Narita airport, two baggage handlers died and four others were injured when a bomb detonated inside a bag being loaded onto Air India flight 301.
During trial, Crown prosecutors argued that Malik and Bagri, both Sikh extremists, planted the bombs as revenge killings for a deadly Indian attack on the holy Sikh Golden Temple of Amritsar in 1984.
In turn, the defence conceded the possibility of a conspiracy to destroy the two planes, but denied Malik and Bagri had any involvement.
The only other person charged and convicted in connection with the 1985 bombings is Inderjit Singh Reyat.
He had been slated to stand trial alongside Malik and Bagri, but in February 2003, he pleaded guilty to a reduced manslaughter charge.
Admitting that he supplied parts for the bomb that brought down Flight 182, he was sentenced to five years. Reyat had already been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the Narita airport explosion.
Later, when he was called as a witness in the trial, Reyat said he had bought parts to make a bomb without knowing who was going to use them.
Investigators maintain that the deadly plot had been hatched by the B.C.-based founder of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa, Talwinder Singh Parmar. He was reported killed in a shootout with Indian police in October 1992.
The group has since been outlawed in Canada.
Before the Sept. 2001, attacks in the United States, the 1985 Air India bombing bore the grim distinction of being the single deadliest modern act of terror. It still stands as history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airliner.
It will soon be 20 years since this, one of the worst terrorist acts in human history, was committed in June 1985, and not one single person has yet been brought to justice.
The families of the victims are currently making statements before the media. Some of these people lost their whole families, were orphaned, or lost spouses and friends. I can't imagine what they must be going through now. It's like all the pain has been reopened. There's no closure whatsoever.
I'm shocked at this ruling and pissed off at the wastefulness of the so-called justice system. There has been no justice today. No justice in this case has yet been seen whatsoever. I'm hoping there will be a public enquiry into this, but I wonder if it will even be worth it.
Apathy. That will be the general attitude to hearing this verdict for most people who didn't personally lose a loved one through terrorism. Very predictable. You should be glad that there wasn't the same kind of apathy on 9/11, when all flights over North America were rerouted to Canada on the order of a Canadian general at NORAD.
Quote: But in his verdict, the B.C. Supreme Court judge said he could not abandon his committment to a basic legal test.
"Despite the horrific nature of the alleged crimes, there can be no lowering of the standard of proof from that required in any criminal trial," he said, criticizing the strength of evidence the prosecution presented to support their case.
Bagri's lawyer Michael Code told reporters after the verdict: "There was a complete absence of any hard evidence. No forensic evidence, no contemporaneous evidence, and then it turned on the weakness of the after-the-fact evidence."
I don't understand. Are you suggesting that in order for terrorism to be defeated, you choose to bypass the rule of law and of fair trials?
It seems to me that if you do that, the terrorists have already suceeded in destroying the very fabric of your society.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
Now I have that gay "I rikey Robbie" phrase under my name.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
Quote: But in his verdict, the B.C. Supreme Court judge said he could not abandon his committment to a basic legal test.
"Despite the horrific nature of the alleged crimes, there can be no lowering of the standard of proof from that required in any criminal trial," he said, criticizing the strength of evidence the prosecution presented to support their case.
Bagri's lawyer Michael Code told reporters after the verdict: "There was a complete absence of any hard evidence. No forensic evidence, no contemporaneous evidence, and then it turned on the weakness of the after-the-fact evidence."
I don't understand. Are you suggesting that in order for terrorism to be defeated, you choose to bypass the rule of law and of fair trials?
It seems to me that if you do that, the terrorists have already suceeded in destroying the very fabric of your society.
You DO realize you're quoting the DEFENCE's lawyer, don't you? Hardly an impartial source of information.
