The Air India trial in Vancouver heard testimony on Monday from a prosecution witness who has stopped co-operating with authorities. The woman was questioned about meetings she had with an accused bomber.

The woman and Ajaib Singh Bagri were friends around the time of the 1985 Air India bombing. She cannot be named until after she has finished testifying.

The woman told the court she cannot remember much about the meeting, but Crown prosecutors claim she's downplaying her evidence.

Co-accused Malik and Bagri

The woman did not look directly at Bagri when guards led her into the courtroom. She was expressionless later when asked to identify her one-time friend.

She told the court she grew up in the same Punjabi village as Bagri, but didn't meet him until she was divorced and living in Vancouver during the early 1980s. Bagri occasionally visited her at home, she testified.

She said a few days before the Air India bombing, which killed 329 people in June 1985, he came to the door late at night and asked to borrow her car. The woman told the court she couldn't recall why he wanted the vehicle, but testified he absolutely did not mention anything about airports or suitcases.

Prosecutors say that's not the version of events she gave in a statement to authorities a few years later. They say she's downplaying her evidence because she's afraid to testify against Bagri.

Lawyers say she told police Bagri came to her door on the eve of the bombings and told her he needed to take some suitcases to Vancouver airport. Later, they say, he wrote her a letter saying he was concerned that she knew his secrets.

The witness said she lost a cousin in the Air India bombing. She also said her memory of that period isn't great.

Prosecutors may apply to the court for permission to question her more aggressively.

Bagri and co-defendant Ripudaman Singh Malik are accused of murder in two bombings on the same day in June 1985 that killed 331 people. One explosion killed two baggage handlers at Japan's Narita airport.

The other bomb killed the 329 people on Air India Flight 182 – the worst mass murder in Canadian history.

The trial continues.