VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- A Sikh terrorist was convicted Friday on manslaughter and explosives charges stemming from a 1985 Japanese airport bombing that killed two baggage handlers.
Inderjit Singh Reyat, 37, formerly of Duncan, British Columbia, faces a possible life sentence at his sentencing hearing on June 7. It was not immediately known if Reyat would appeal the verdict.
Reyat did not react when British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Raymond Paris convicted him of involvement in the blast at Narita airport that killed Hideo Asano and Hideharu Koda on June 23, 1985.
The court heard evidence linking the attack with the bombing of an Air India jet an hour earlier that killed 329 people. No charges have been filed in the Air India bombing.
The court also heard a police wiretap of Reyat laughing about the Air India tragedy and saying: 'We don't know what went wrong.'
The court heard that an unknown East Indian man paid cash for tickets on both flights three days before the explosions. One CP Air flight went from Vancouver to Tokyo, where it was to connect with an Air India flight for Bangkok.
A second CP Air flight went from Vancouver to Toronto, where it connected with the ill-fated Air India flight bound for New Delhi.
Paris told the court: 'The actions of the accused were unlawful, knowingly dangerous and caused death.'
The justice said the stereo tuner that housed the Narita bomb was one of only five in the world and that Reyat had bought one of them. 'He knew the bomb was to be used for some illicit purpose,' he said. 'It could not be otherwise.
Paris said evidence showed Reyat gathered the tuner and bomb materials together and then tested them.
There was testimony that in the months before the bombings, Reyat acquired dynamite and talked of revenge against the Indian army for its bloody 1984 assault on the Sikh temple at Amritsar, India.
Over 200 witnesses testified in the case, which began Sept. 17. Some 62 days of court time were used, making it one of the longest criminal cases in Canadian history. In addition, a estimated $5 million was spent on the police investigation, Reyat's extradition from England and his trial.
Reyat, a former leader of a Sikh temple in British Columbia, moved to Britain with his wife and two children in 1986. Reyat was arrested in Coventry, England, two years ago by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and British police and extradited to Canada last year after lengthy hearings.
Three radical groups, including two Sikh terrorist organizations, claimed responsibility for the Air India crash in telephone calls to news organizations. Sikh extremists are fighting for an independent nation in the predominately Sikh state of Punjab in northern India.
