A career criminal said he was offered a suitcase full of cash by Sikh militants to blow up an Air India plane -- but instead turned informer and told police about the plot months before the plane exploded in 1985.
The man, who declined to be named, testified on Monday in a much-delayed public inquiry into the attack that killed 329 people, the deadliest airline bombing in history. Two men were acquitted in the case while a third -- the alleged bomb-maker -- was sentenced to five years in jail for his role in what is also Canada's worst case of mass murder.
The sentences outraged the relatives of the victims, who demanded a public inquiry into the bombing. The inquiry, however, had been repeatedly delayed after some initial hearings last fall as officials argued over how much evidence could be made public. Its aim is to determine if there was an intelligence failure.
Testifying from behind a screen and speaking in a hoarse whisper, the man said he was approached by a Sikh friend in the fall of 1984 and agreed to discuss a potential attack on India's state airline.
But he only did so, he told the inquiry headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major, in order to gather information and tip law-enforcement authorities. He said he warned both the Vancouver police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police about the plot.
Although he asked not to be identified on Monday and lawyers at the inquiry agreed not to name him, Major issued no formal order of non-publication.
In fact, the man has been identified elsewhere as Gerry Boudreault and he has been telling his story in various forms since the 1990s. He admits to a 40-year criminal record that includes convictions for theft, breaking and entering and armed robbery.
On Monday, he said he had clandestine meetings and received an offer of US$180,000 -- although no money actually changed hands -- to plant a bomb on an Air India plane in Montreal in November 1984. That plan never came to fruition, he admitted, and when Flight 182 was brought down seven months later the bomb originated in Vancouver.
The testimony on Monday came as the inquiry embarked on a key phase of its hearings, designed to shed light on whether Canadian police and security officers did all they could to head off the 1985 bombing.
Air India Flight 182 from Toronto to London, originating in Vancouver, exploded and crashed off Ireland on June 23, 1985. The flight was brought down by a bomb believed to have been planted by Sikh extremists campaigning for a homeland in northern India. An hour earlier, a bomb in baggage intended for another Air India flight exploded in the Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers.
Rick Crook, a former municipal policeman in Vancouver, also testified that he spoke to a informer in October 1984 who proposed to blow the whistle on the purported conspiracy in exchange for lenient treatment on unrelated criminal charges he then faced.
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