RCMP downplayed tensions with CSIS in 1992 Air India review: witness

The RCMP played down its strained relationship with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service during a review of the Air India bombing conducted 15 years ago, the inquiry looking into the disaster heard Wednesday.

Former RCMP sergeant Terry Goral testified the Mounties didn't want to complicate their investigation into the bombing by being too critical of the newly formed spy agency.

As a result, the RCMP emphasized positive aspects of the relationship and played down failures in a brief submitted to the Security Intelligence Review Committee. The civilian body, which monitors CSIS, examined the spy agency's role in the Air India affair in 1992.

"This was not an appropriate way to brief, as far as the so-called relationships and problems (with CSIS)," Goral acknowledged.

"However, in the best interests of the investigation, this was the least intrusive. We were forced to do a briefing and this was, in my opinion, the best way to do it."

Air India Flight 182 exploded off the west coast of Ireland in June 1985, killing all 329 people on board, mostly Canadians.

The SIRC review committee, in its eventual report, was critical of CSIS for its erasures of wiretap tapes but concluded it was unlikely that any critical evidence had been lost.

In actual fact, said Goral, many RCMP investigators did not share that opinion and believed they could have uncovered valuable leads if the recordings had been preserved.

Inquiry 'shackled,' says family lawyer

Jacques Shore, a lawyer for the families of Air India victims, said SIRC was "shackled and handcuffed" because information was withheld.

"I don't think there was much hope from the start that they were going to get the full picture," said Shore.

Goral's testimony set the stage for a long-awaited appearance by former RCMP commissioner Robert Simmonds, who had been scheduled to follow Goral to the witness stand Wednesday but saw his testimony put off for a day.

He is expected to face pointed questioning about turf wars between the RCMP and CSIS and their effect on the investigation of the bombing.

The inquiry, which started in 2006 and is headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major, was called because the Air India investigation and prosecution was the costliest and one of the longest in Canadian history— yet it led to no murder convictions.

Luggage carrying the bomb that downed Flight 182and a bombthat killed two baggage handlers at a Tokyo airport were loaded at Vancouver International Airport.

Investigators believe the bombings were carried out by extremists who wanted India to create an independent Sikh homeland.

Only one person was ever convicted in the plot. Inderjit Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2003 and received a five-year sentence.

The suspected ringleader, Talwinder Singh Parmar, died in India in 1992, and the RCMP's two main surviving suspects were both acquitted in March 2005, after a 19-month trial.