Air India bombing probe to resume today

TORONTO: The inquiry into the 1985 bombing of an Air India plane that killed over 300 people is set to resume on Monday, even though officials have not resolved a long-running dispute over secret evidence.

Inquiry spokesman Michael Tansey said the public hearings would reopen on March 5 with testimony from present and former security and police officers as well as academic experts.

The inquiry will, for now, concentrate on background issues related to the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in the early 1980s, and the general perception of terrorist threats at that time.

That means that the commission has decided to rearrange its witness list and sidestep a public confrontation with the government amid ongoing negotiations on the issue of sensitive documents that have been heavily censored on national security ground.

John C Major, the former Supreme Court judge who heads the inquiry, threatened two weeks ago to shut down proceedings if the officials didn’t relent in their secrecy policy. Major and his counsel have seen the material in question and have the legal power to deal with it in private.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded by saying he would pass the word, through his national security adviser, for government departments to adopt a “non-restrictive interpretation” of federal secrecy law in an effort to resolve the dispute.

Talks have been going on since then between government lawyers and commission counsel, but there has been no word on whether they are making progress. “The discussions are continuing,” Tansey was quoted as saying by Canadian Press.