Web site with details of Air India evidence evades ban

Web site with details of Air India evidence evades ban
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VANCOUVER, FEB 15: A web site intended to raise support for a suspect in the bombing of Air India Flight 182 contains information from the case banned from publication by judge.

The Web site, in support of convicted bomber Inderjit Singh Reyat, includes some evidence discussed at a December bail hearing for accused bombers Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri.

Justice Patrick Dohm of the British Colombia Supreme Court issued a publication ban on the bail hearing at the request of lawyers for Malik and Bagri. Publication bans are common in some Canadian judicial hearings.

``We're looking at the material to see whether we are going to refer it to (police),'' said Geoff Gaul, spokesman for the B C attorney general's office.

Despite the publication ban, the Web site includes a section of what it calls ``doubtful new evidence'' regarding information used to file charges against Malik and Bagri.

Malik, a Vancouver businessman, and Bagri, a sawmill worker from Kamloops, British Columbia, were arrested in October. They face charges of conspiracy and first-degree murder in the bombing of Flight 182, which went down off the coast of Ireland on June 23 1985, killing 329 passengers and crew.

Bagri (51) and Malik (53) also are charged with the murders of two baggage handlers killed when a bomb destined for Air India Flight 301 detonated on the same day at the Narita airport in Tokyo.

In addition, Bagri and Malik are charged with the attempted murder of the passengers and crew of Flight 301, and Bagri is charged in a 1988 assassination attempt of Tara Singh Hayer, the publisher the Indo-Canadian Times and a critic of Sikh extremists.

Hayer was murdered a decade after the assassination attempt, and police have yet to arrest a suspect in the killing.

Reyat, the subject of the website, is nearing the end of a 10-year prison sentence for his conviction in the Tokyo airpor bombing. He is named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the charges against Malik and Bagri filed in October.

The Web site's domain name is registered to Didar Singh Reyat of Surrey, British Columbia. Inderjit Singh Reyat has a son with the same name.

The site says Reyat has been offered cash, freedom and immunity from future prosecution in return for testimony ``that may be false, incomplete or otherwise misinterpreted by the courts''.

Reyat, who has maintained his innocence, refuses to cooperate with ``false allegations'', it says, and therefore ``remains incarcerated today''.

Canadian prosecutors have asked the British government permission to put Reyat on trial with Malik and Bagri for the bombing of Air India Flight 182.

Reyat was extradited from Britain in 1989 to stand trial in Canada on the Tokyo airport bombing charges. To now put him on trial on other charges, Canadian authorities need British consent.

The Web site includes a petition asking the British Home Secretary to withhold consent.

Reyat's lawyer, Kuldip Chaggar, said the Web site is the only way his client can get his word out.

``I guess a fellow who's completely destitute, who's been denied legal aid, who has no money, has to find a way of getting a fair hearing somehow,'' Chaggar said, adding he was representing Reyat for free.