NOW CITY BOMB MAKER WANTS TO RETURN HOME
JAILED OVER AIRLINE TERROR ATTACKS THAT KILLED 331...
A COVENTRY terrorist involved in one of the deadliest airline attacks in history is bidding to return home.
Bomb-maker Inderjit Singh Reyat played a leading part in the 1985 Air India atrocity which claimed 329 lives.
He was the only person to be convicted over the attack which saw Air India Flight 182 blown up off the coast of Ireland.
Two baggage handlers were killed in a second bomb attack at Japan’s Narita airport.
Former Jaguar Land Rover worker Reyat was released in January after serving six years of a nine-year sentence for perjury.
A Sikh immigrant to Canada, he previously served more than 15 years in prison for making the bombs planted on passenger planes destined for New Delhi.
One bomb blew up Flight 182, killing all 329 people aboard, including 27 Britons and 60 children under the age of 11.
It was the deadliest terrorist attack on a commercial airliner prior to the 9/11 World Trade Centre atrocity.
The second exploded at Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers as they transferred cargo.
The attack took place during an Indian crackdown on Sikhs fighting for an independent homeland. It was alleged to be in revenge for the storming of the Sikh religion’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, by Indian troops in June 1984.
Reyat has been ordered to live at a halfway house until August 2018, when his perjury sentence would normally expire, and abide by conditions set by the parole board, including having no contact with victims’ families or alleged former co-conspirators, and no political activities.
He must also obtain counseling to address violent tendencies, a lack of empathy and “cognitive distortions.”
A family friend said Reyat had now formally requested that he be allowed to return to the West Midlands after completing his sentence. He had previously lived in Coventry.
The supporter, who did not want to be named, said: “He has a lot of family and friends in the Midlands and wants to return to live a quiet and unobtrusive life which is impossible now for him in Canada. A formal request has been put forward by his lawyers and the Parole Board will make the final decision. He has been punished for his crimes and is not a threat to British security.”
In 2010, Reyat was convicted of lying while testifying in the mass murder trial of alleged coconspirators Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, who were later acquitted for a lack of evidence.
He had avoided being tried alongside the pair by pleading guilty to a lesser manslaughter charge.
Reyat’s nine-year perjury sentence was the longest ever handed down by a Canadian court and the trial the country’s most costliest.
A spokesman for the Parole Board of Canada said it could not comment on individual cases.