'I was offered $200,000 to place bomb on Air-India flight'

Ajit Jain in Toronto | May 01, 2007 18:33 IST

A French-Canadian, with a criminal record, has reportedly told the Air India inquiry in Ottawa that he was offered $200,000 to put a bomb on the Air-India flight leaving Montreal.

The man, described as 'Person 1' and seated behind a white sheet, told Justice John Major on Monday, his dramatic tale as to how some people approached him and offered him money and how he accepted the assignment even though he had no intention of carrying it out.



His sole objective was to gather information for the police so that lives could be saved.

He told Justice John Major, who is chairing the inquiry, he had informed the police about it, but they did not take it seriously. One officer, according to this witness, even laughed at him, he recalled.

'When they showed me the money and the equipment, I knew they were serious,' this witness is quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying.



'I wanted to prevent an airplane (from) being blown out of the sky full of people, and I am very sorry about the family of these victims. I do not have the bombing on my conscience. I did everything I could to prevent it.'

This testimony, along with former Vancouver Police officer Rick Crook, who told the inquiry on Monday that a man with unrelated criminal charges told him in October 1984 of a plot 'to place a bomb on an Air India plane' in his bid to get leniency from the courts, prove that the authorities had enough warnings several months before the actual Air India tragedy on June 23, 1985 but they were not taken seriously.

The identity of the witness who testified from behind the white sheet was not revealed even though he is otherwise known and the media was requested by the government not to identify him.

At the end of his testimony, Justice Major reportedly told this witness that while it is his right to testify anonymously, the fact that he had already told this story in public earlier, in relation to a civil suit against the Calgary police, means that his identify could surface through other means.

The hearings will continue with more former police officers appearing before the inquiry this week.