Convicted Air India terrorist Reyat allowed to live at home

VANCOUVER• The only man convicted in the 1985 Air India bombing no longer has to stay in a halfway house and can now live at his family home, the Parole Board of Canada has ruled.

Inderjit Singh Reyat was released from prison a year ago, after completing twothirds of his perjury sentence for lying at the trial of two co-accused who were later acquitted in the deadly terrorist attack.

At the time, the Parole Board of Canada imposed special conditions on Reyat, including that he must live in the halfway house in an unnamed B.C. community.

But on Jan. 27, board member Laura Hall removed that special condition after getting a recommendation from Correctional Service Canada.

She said Reyat has been abiding by all of his special conditions over the past year.

“There has been no evidence of communication with any negative associates who may hold extremist views or be involved in political activity,” Hall said in her decision.

Reyat’s risk to reoffend is now low, she said.

Before Reyat’s perjury conviction, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter for his role in the June 23, 1985, bombing of Air India Flight 182, which killed all 329 aboard. He was sentenced to five years.

But when he was called as a Crown witness against coaccused Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, Reyat lied repeatedly, leading to his perjury charge in 2006, the year after both men were acquitted.

In her parole decision, Hall noted Reyat was so loyal to Malik and Bagri, “that you were willing to lie for them in court.”

“As a result of your committing perjury, the co- accused were not convicted of any criminal offences.”

Reyat was also f ound guilty of manslaughter in an earlier trial for building the bomb that exploded the same day at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, resulting in the deaths of two baggage handlers. He got a 10- year sentence. The two bombings were plotted by B.C. Sikh separatists who targeted India’s national airline to retaliate for the Indian Army’s raid a year earlier on the Golden Temple — Sikhism’s holiest shrine — in Amritsar.

While Reyat will now be able to live at home, other special conditions remain in place until the end of his sentence in August 2018.

He is not allowed to participate in political activities for any organization, can’t contact his victims’ families and must stay away from criminals, extremist propaganda and anything that could be used to build an explosive device.