The prosecution's other witnesses were no more believable, Josephson said. One was a man who was furious with Malik over a business deal and went to police 12 years after the bombing, just days after threatening to ruin Malik. The testimony of another witness, who said Malik solicited him to carry a bomb-laden bag, was "impossible," the judge said.
In acquitting Bagri, Malik's co-defendant, a preacher and sawmill worker, the judge said a prosecution witness who was paid $300,000 for his testimony was "driven by self-interest."
An unidentified man wept after a judge found two Canadian Sikhs not guilty in the 1985 bombings.
(Andy Clark -- Reuters)
|
|
"We knew from the outset of this prosecution, it would be a complex and challenging one," said the leader of the prosecuting team, Geoffrey Gaul, who defended the decision to press forward with what evidence the government had. "We were satisfied we had a case. Was it a slam-dunk case? No."
Feuding between the RCMP and the then-newly organized Canadian Security Intelligence Service marred the investigation from the beginning. CSIS staff members erased documents, withdrew surveillance of a key figure in the alleged conspiracy hours before the bombs were set and did not tell the RCMP, according to government investigative reports disclosed last year.
The case showed the difficulties of investigating terrorism conspiracies, said Michael Byers, a professor of law at the University of British Columbia.
"The nature of a conspiracy is that it takes place covertly. It doesn't involve persons visibly engaged in a physical act," he said. "You are talking about a crime that occurs in a diaspora community that is very tightly knit and not very open to police investigations."
He said that the Air India case was in a "pre-9/11 world" and that an official inquiry would likely show only that the Canadian investigating agencies have changed significantly.
"We now know it's difficult," Byers said. "We know that penetrating diaspora communities is more important than we thought it was, and working with diaspora communities . . . we get that now."
