The Air-India prosecution team mistakenly passed classified FBI information to defence lawyers in the high profile international terrorism case, British Columbia Supreme Court heard Wednesday.
Cross examination of a crucial witness testifying against defendant Ajaib Singh Bagri was suddenly stopped after prosecutor Richard Cairns revealed the bureaucratic slip-up.
“This document we are examining this morning, I don't know where this particular document came from,” an astonished Mr. Cairns told the court.
“We provided [defence counsel] with a vetted version of this document which had blacked over this particular information. ... This material has not been declassified by the FBI,” he said.
Please see our
The document must have been released through an “oversight,” he said. “We were somewhat taken aback to see it in this form.”
Justice Ian Bruce Josephson adjourned the proceedings for an hour to allow lawyers from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Canada's Department of Justice, the prosecution and the defence to consult on what to do next. The court then adjourned for an additional two hours.
The confidential information was contained in a telex dated Sept. 27, 1985 that was partially read out in court by defence lawyer Richard Peck. Mr. Peck said he had received the telex from the prosecution as part of a routine process requiring evidence against the accused to be disclosed before a trial.
The telex refers to several people who were involved in an attempted assassination of a former Indian government state official in New Orleans in May, 1985. U.S. authorities at that time arrested four people for conspiracy to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi, who was then India's prime minister, and Bhanjanial Singh, another Indian official. But two people escaped.
The group involved in the attempted assassination were all members of a Sikh separatist group, called the Deshmesh Regiment.
A witness testifying at the Air-India trial, who was an FBI informant, told the court earlier this week that he sent money for airline tickets to those who were not arrested. The witness said he was the Deshmesh Regiment treasurer at that time. A court order prohibits the media from identifying the witness.
Mr. Peck said the telex talks about this witness making statements about various people “and pointing a finger away from himself, in respect to the New Orleans matter.”
Before the proceedings were stopped, the defence lawyer told the court that he wanted to question the witness about the two men who escaped arrest in New Orleans.
Mr. Peck said the two men were the first persons to be named as suspects in the Air-India disaster.
The Air-India disaster occurred on June 23, 1985, about six weeks after the failed assassination attempt in New Orleans. The Globe and Mail reported on June 25, 1985 that Indian government officials believed the two fugitives, identified as Lal Singh and Ammand Singh, were involved in the bombing of the Air-India jetliner that left 329 people dead and the explosion of luggage from a CP Air plane that killed two baggage handlers in Tokyo.
Intelligence sources had told The Globe that the FBI suspected the two men were planning anti-Indian terrorism as early as January, 1985. The FBI said the two men were wanted in the U.S. to face charges of conspiracy to kill Mr. Gandhi and the former Indian state official in New Orleans and were believed to have fled to Canada.
As the lawyers left the courtroom, two FBI officials declined to comment. The trial was expected to resume late Wednesday.
Mr. Bagri and Vancouver businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik are on trial for murder of 331 people killed in two explosions on June 23, 1985 on opposite sides of the world.
