Air India bomb maker seeks perjury conviction appeal
Air India bomb maker Inderjit Singh Reyat is asking the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn a perjury conviction related to his testimony at the trial for two men acquitted in the case of the 1985 mass murder.
Reyat's lawyer has filed a notice with the country's highest court asking for leave to appeal his conviction, which was upheld by the B.C. Court of Appeal earlier this year.
Reyat was convicted of lying at the 2003 trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, who were ultimately acquitted on charges connected to the bombing that killed 329 people.
Reyat, who earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the case, was sentenced to nine years for his perjury conviction — believed to be the longest perjury sentence in Canadian history.
The notice to the Supreme Court of Canada argues the trial judge made a mistake in his instructions to the jury in relation to the 19 lies Reyat was accused of telling in his testimony in the 2003 trial.
Argues judge erred
Reyat's lawyer has argued the judge was wrong to tell jurors they didn't have to agree on which specific lie Reyat told, as long as they each agreed that he lied during the trial.
"The necessary elements or ingredients for the offence of perjury are entirely consistent among the 19 particulars to the indictment, and there was evidence on which the jury could have found each to have been proven," the court said in its decision, dated July 19.
Reyat was a Crown witness at Malik's and Bagri's trial, when he insisted he knew nothing about the alleged conspiracy. The judge in that case later described Reyat as an "unmitigated liar."
The testimony was part of a deal that saw Reyat plead guilty to manslaughter in the bombing of the plane and receive a controversial five-year sentence. He also served an earlier 10-year sentence for manslaughter for the deaths of two airport baggage handlers in Tokyo.
It's believed a suitcase bomb was loaded onto a plane at Vancouver International Airport, then transferred to the Air India flight, which touched down in Montreal before continuing o n towards London. The bomb exploded off the coast of Ireland, killing all passengers and crew.
An hour later, a bomb destined from another Air India plane exploded in Tokyo.
The Crown's theory was that British Columbia-based Sikhs hatched the plot to take revenge against government-owned Air India after the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple — Sikhism's holiest shrine — in June 1984 to oust Sikh separatists.