Toronto, Jan 8 (IANS) Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only convicted Air India bomber, was Friday sentenced to nine more years for lying under oath at the Air India Kanishka bombing trial. The verdict was pronounced by a court in Vancouver.
Air India Kanishka flight 182 from Montreal to Delhi was blown off mid-air near Ireland June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people on board.
Within an hour, another bomb meant for another Air India flight from Tokyo to Mumbai went off during luggage transfer at Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers.
Both the bombs were planted by Vancouver-based Khalistani extremists to avenge the 1984 army action at the Golden Temple to flush militants.
Reyat, who admitted to testing the bomb that blew off at Tokyo airport, was jailed for 10 years in jail in 1991.
After this, he was given another five years – in plea bargain that he would testify truthfully at the trial of two other suspects – for his role in assembling the bomb that blew off Kanishka. He got out of jail in 2008.
But he lied multiple times during the trial of the two suspects – Vancouver-based Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri in 2003 – leading to their acquittal.
The sentence announced Friday is the longest ever for perjury in Canadian legal history.
(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)
