Documents just released by the RCMP suggest the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service had a mole in the plot to bomb Air India.

They also suggest CSIS pulled out the mole at the last minute so he wouldn't be implicated.

Surjan Singh Gill
Surjan Singh Gill

The documents are transcripts of an interview conducted by the RCMP with Ajaib Singh Bagri after his arrest in October 2000.

Officers laid out the case against him and then said one of the members of the alleged conspiracy was an agent for Canada's spy agency.

That person's name was Surjan Singh Gill, who at the time described himself as the consul-general of Khalistan. Sikh militants had been fighting for an independent state that would be called Khalistan, but it doesn't exist as a country, either then or now.

Insp. Lorne Schwartz said in the transcripts that Gill was involved right from the start and was directed by "certain people" to stay involved and learn what was going on.

Sgt. Jim Hunter then said Gill's CSIS minders told him to back out. "They told him to get out of there. That things are happening and you can't be seen as part of that."

This development transpired days before the bombing.

Gill eventually left Canada to live in London. He was never charged in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, which took place in 1985, killing 329 people off the coast of Ireland.

Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik are currently on trial. They face eight charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy.

Neither CSIS nor the RCMP would comment on the revelations in the transcript.

CSIS did destroy hundreds of wiretaps relating to the Air India investigation, something that the Crown conceded in court was "unacceptable negligence."