THE RCMP have told the media that the mysterious suspect known as “Mr. X” who was with convicted Air India bombmaker Inderjit Singh Reyat has died before facing charges.
Media has reported that police said in an email that investigators had “uncovered information related to a suspect they believe was involved in testing an explosive device prior to the Air India terrorist attack on June 23, 1985.”
The suspect remains unnamed because police did not have enough evidence to unequivocally confirm that he was indeed the person.
In his 2003 testimony at the Air India trial, Reyat said that Talwinder Singh Parmar (who is considered the mastermind of the Air India bombing plot and who was apparently murdered by Indian police in Punjab before he could be charged by the RCMP) asked him to make an explosive device in 1984 and that he agreed because he was very upset at the way the Indian government had treated Sikhs. He said he bought material for the device and claimed that Parmar did not tell him what it would be used for. When Reyat tested the explosive device, the mysterious “Mr. X” was present.
In 2014, the B.C. Appeal Court rejected Reyat’s plea to cut his nine-year prison term that he received in January 2011 for lying 19 times during his Air India testimony to six or seven years. The court said that the offence was grave. The judges ruled that the trial judge did not err in finding denunciation was a key factor in sentencing.
The judges ruled: “The perjured testimony went to central events. Mr. Reyat was involved with the scheme to bomb Air India, was asked by Mr. Parmar to build a bomb, and met Mr. X in relation to this request. It would be speculative to say his evidence would have ended there. By his false denials of recollection, Mr. Reyat foreclosed a proper and relevant line of questioning.”
Reyat’s lawyer Ian Donaldson in November 2013 had told the court that Reyat was remorseful about the Air India bombing deaths and didn’t gain anything by lying during testimony against his co-accused.
In 1991, Reyat was sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter in connection with the bombing at Japan’s Narita airport in June of 1985 that killed two baggage handlers. In February of 2003 he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the June 1985 Air India bombing after having been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and first-degree murder in 2001. He was charged with perjury in February 2006 while still in jail. He was out on bail from July 2008 until his conviction in September 2010.
Ripudaman Singh Malik of Vancouver and Ajaib Singh Bagri of Kamloops were acquitted in the Air India trial.
The Supreme Court of Canada rejected Reyat’s request in January 2014 for a hearing on his appeal against his perjury conviction in the Air India Bombing Trial. The court gave no reasons for its decision. Reyat had filed a notice of appeal to the B.C. Court of Appeal after he was sentenced on January 7, 2011. In October 2012, he had appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Donaldson had told the court in November 2013 that Reyat didn’t concoct a false story to get someone exonerated. He also said that Reyat had been of “excellent, indeed impeccable, behaviour” in custody.
But Justice Mary Saunders said that Reyat had rejected one of the values of Canadian society – the administration of the justice system – by refusing to say what he knew when questioned at the Air India trial.
She said: “In a peculiar way, it is very, very bad to have somebody testify and give a completely false account.
“There is something almost inherently more offensive to have somebody sit there and say, ‘I’m not going to tell you, I don’t remember,’ coming up with little lies and prevarications that completely eliminates the potential of finding out what that witness would be prepared to say.”
Full judgement at:
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/CA/14/01/2014BCCA0101.htm
