I warned RCMP days before Air India disaster: Bartleman
OntarioLt.-Gov. James Bartlemansays he was scolded by an RCMP officer several days before the Air India disaster when he showed him a document suggesting a flight would be targeted on the weekend of the attack.
In testimony Thursday at the inquiry into the bombing in Ottawa, Bartleman said he found the document in his daily package of intelligence briefings in the week of June 18.
"I saw in there a document that indicated Air India was being targeted that weekend— specifically the weekend of the 22-23," said Bartleman.
"It was raw, unevaluated information. There had been so many alarms raised over the previous year about potential attacks… that I suppose it would be possible for someone to say this is just another one of these cry wolf events."
Bartleman said he personally delivered the document to a committee meeting on Sikh extremism that was going on at the same time.
'Hissed at'
When he showed the document to the senior RCMP officer at the meeting, Bartleman said he was "startled" by the reaction he got.
"He flushed and told me that of course he'd seen it, and that he didn't need me to tell him how to do his job," he said.
"That confirmed that he had seen it and that the RCMP would take that into consideration and do what was necessary. The next thing… in my memory is the downing of the aircraft."
When asked why he recalled that incident so clearly, Bartleman said he had never been "hissed at" in such a way during his career and that it made a "searing impression."
"I know what I saw and I know what happened," Bartleman said.
Bartleman said he didn't reveal the information until the inquiry was established because he assumed the matter was investigated during one of the internal reviews by the RCMP.
Family lawyer finds testimony 'astounding'
Jacques Shore, one of the lawyers for the families of the Air India victims, called the testimony "astounding." He congratulated Bartleman on his decision to go public, even if it was belated.
"I think the lieutenant-governor being here today demonstrated his courage," Shore said. "(He) recognized there was something that was left undone, in his mind, and that this was a part of the story that needed to be told."
Also testifying Thursday was former CSIS officer Lynn Jarrett, who tracked two men who would later be implicatedin the attack — Talwinder Singh Parmar and Inderjit Singh Reyat.
Three weeks before the Air India bombing, she and another CSIS officer followed two men into the woods on Vancouver Island and heard a loud noise.
"There was an extremely loud bang," Jarrett testified. The officers thought it might be the men undergoing firearm training.
After the Air India bombing, the officers returned to thewoods and found evidence that the noise had actually been an explosives test.
Parmar, the suspected mastermind of the Air India bombing, was arrested in November 1985 on weapons, explosives and conspiracy charges, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. He died in India in 1992 in what officials said was a shootout with police.
Reyat, a bomb maker, was imprisoned for manslaughter in a 2003 plea bargain.
Plane came down near Ireland
Two other men, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted of all charges in 2005 after the costliest investigation and prosecution in Canadian history.
Of the 329 people onAir India Flight 182, 280 were Canadian citizens and 82 were children. The bombing brought the planedown over the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Ireland.
A separate luggage bomb destined for a second Air India flight killed two Japanese baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita airport.
The inquiry into the disaster, headed by retired Supreme Court justice John Major, resumed Monday with a focus on leads, tips and warnings that surfaced before the disaster.
With files from the Canadian Press