Adviser and longtime friend Fred Doucet, right, speaks with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in this 1986 photo in Montreal. (Canadian Press)

Documents released late Friday suggest a senior adviser in the Mulroney government wanted to keep key facts about the 1985 Air India bombing hidden.

All 329 people on board Air India Flight 182 died when the plane crashed near Ireland on June 23, 1985.

The inquiry into the bombing wrapped up more than a year ago and retired Supreme Court justice John Major is still writing his report. It is expected by next fall.

The federal Department of Justice produced documents for the inquiry that suggest the Prime Minister's Office, in 1985 and 1986, tried to conceal from the Indian government the fact that the bombing was plotted entirely in Canada.

At the time, the RCMP had already concluded the bombing was planned and orchestrated entirely in Canada. That conclusion was reflected in a report the Aviation Safety Board prepared for India's Kirpal Commission, which was investigating the bombing.

But the ministerial briefing notes released Friday show the PMO — specifically, Brian Mulroney's senior adviser Fred Doucet — thought that report didn't show Canada in the "best light."

The notes called the ASB report "potentially damaging" and suggest it should therefore not be given to the Indian government. There are even accusations of a conflict of interest.

At the time, one of the memos reads, the safety board may have perceived "itself as being in a position of possible conflict," because its interests in aviation safety and determining the cause of the accident were "possibly at odds" with the government's interest in portraying Canada in the best light possible.

Lawyers for the victims' families have accused the Mulroney government of covering up information to limit financial liability.

"The two documents provide further indication that in the aftermath of the bombing … there was a coverup to limit the release of information and, in so doing, it ultimately served to limit the amount of financial compensation families of the victims would receive," says a submission to the inquiry from Air India Victims' Families Association lawyer Jacques Shore.