Malik and Bagri acquitted in the Air India bombing trial

Who: Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, tried before Justice Ian Josephson of the Supreme Court of British Columbia for the bombing of Air India Flight 182 on 23 June 1985 and the bomb at Narita Airport. Talwinder Singh Parmar, now dead, whom the judgment says the Crown and the defence generally acknowledged to have been the leader of the conspiracy. Inderjit Singh Reyat, who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter for helping to build a bomb.

What: Malik and Bagri were arrested on 27 October 2000 and charged with conspiracy to murder and to place bombs on aircraft. The trial opened on 28 April 2003 in a high-security courtroom in Vancouver and ran about 16 months; The Canadian Encyclopedia says 115 people testified. The judgment says no forensic evidence linked either man to either bomb and that neither testified, so guilt turned on the credibility of witnesses.

Against Malik, Justice Josephson found that each of the three main Crown witnesses, called Mr. B, Mr. A and Ms. D, was not credible. He concluded that Ms. D had “crafted a false confession” from published accounts. Against Bagri, the Crown relied on remarks he was said to have made and on statements by a witness called Ms. E to a CSIS agent. The judge found those statements to be hearsay without reliable confirmation. He also found that Bagri's rights under section 7 of the Charter had been violated three times: twice when CSIS destroyed the Parmar telephone intercepts and its notes and tapes of Ms. E's interviews, and once by late Crown disclosure.

On 16 March 2005 Justice Josephson found both men not guilty on every count. He wrote that the bombing was an act “finding its roots in fanaticism at its basest and most inhumane level”, but that “Justice is not achieved” if people are convicted on less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and that despite the “best and most earnest of efforts by the police and the Crown, the evidence has fallen markedly short of that standard”. Maclean's reported that the investigation and trial together cost more than $130 million.

Where: The Supreme Court of British Columbia, Vancouver.

Why it mattered: The verdict left the families without a court finding on who planned the attack, though Reyat had been convicted of manslaughter for helping to build the bombs. The verdict revived the families' demand for a public inquiry, and the Major Commission, appointed in 2006, reported in 2010. ThePrint reported that Malik was found shot dead in his car outside his business in July 2022.