RCMP, CSIS knew of threats to Air India: documents
The RCMP and the government knew ofa terrorist threat and a security plan was devised, declassified documents released by the inquiry probing the1985 Air India bombing suggest.
The documents obtained by the CBC's Terry Milewski show the Mounties, the Canadian Security Intelligence Serviceandthe foreign service had allseen reliable information aboutthreats to Air India months before the June 1985 bombing that killed 329 people.
The latest findings come on the heels of testimony from OntarioLt.-Gov. James Bartleman, who was in charge of the intelligence analysis and the security branch of the Department of External Affairs when the plane blew up.
He testified last week thathe was scolded by an RCMP officerwhen he showed him — several days before the Air India bombing — a document suggesting a flight would be targeted on the weekend of the attack.
The declassified documents showthe threat was taken seriously and thata security plan was put in place, butnot followed.
Thedocumentsalso reveal thatAir India itself promised five months before Flight 182exploded over the west coast of Ireland that "all baggage will be examined before loading."
Random checks
The weekly Air India flight continued, even though a review of the security plan showed that "only random checks of the baggage" were being done. Someone wrote in January 1985 in the page margin of one document, "Why?"
In 1984, both CSIS and the police knew the danger of Sikh militants whowere escalating their terrorist activities.
The documents show it wasn't just their leader, Talwinder Parmar, who was being watched. He waslater killed by Indian police during a gun battle in Mumbai in 1992.
The Indian High Commission sent in a tip that militants "have decided to hijack Air India aircraft" and said that Ajaib Singh Bagri of Kamloops, B.C., was among those planning to do it.
Bagri, along with co-accused Ripudaman Singh Malik,was acquitted at the Air India trial in 2005.
Tips taken seriously
Tips from informers, some of which were disclosedin last week'stestimony, were taken seriously at the time, the documents indicate.
A 1984 memo that went to the RCMP commissioner began with "Re: Bombing of Air India airplane." Then, in December 1984, a telex from Air India warned of "spectacular action including terrorist acts in the near future."
Susheel Gupta, a federal prosecutor whose mother died on Flight 182, told CBC News, "certainly we wonder why this was not prevented," particularly when the government received warnings months before the disaster.
The inquiry, headedby retired Supreme Court justice John Major,continues Monday with testimony from Bartleman's boss, former External Affairs deputy minister Gordon Smith, who is expected to testify that Bartleman never told him about the warning.
Later this week, former CSISmember John Henry and RCMP Sgt. Warren Sweeney are also expected to provide testimony at the inquiry.