An unusual turn of events at the Air India trial in Vancouver. The Crown is trying to have its latest witness deemed hostile, so that it can use her prior incriminating statements against co-defendant Ajaib Singh Bagri.

The witness is refusing to repeat statements she made to police on the witness stand and claims they were coerced by police. "I do not remember having that conversation with them," she told the court.

Crown prosecutors say they'll call the officers who took those statements to prove otherwise.

Co-accused Malik and Bagri

In the statements the witness suggests that Bagri tried to borrow her car to take suitcase bombs to the airport the night before the Air India bombing, in June 1985.

She cannot be named until after she has finished testifying.

On Monday, the woman told the court she cannot remember much about the meeting with Bagri. 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.

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.