Once again Canadians are outraged at the lenient sentence handed a killer. In the most recent fiasco that passes for Canadian justice, Inderjit Singh Reyat, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the deaths of 329 innocent passengers onboard Air-India flight 182 in June 1985, received a five-year sentence. The judge in the case recommended that Reyat serve his time at the minimum security prison at Ferndale Institution in British Columbia. The institution features a small golf course, tennis courts and other amenities in a pastoral wooded setting with no fences or even a gate. It has been calculated that Reyat will serve five and one half days for each of the lives lost in the explosion.
Reyat was serving 10 years for manslaughter in the deaths of two Japanese baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita Airport. The airport workers were killed when baggage from a Canadian Pacific flight out of Vancouver was offloaded. The pair was transferring luggage from the CP Air aircraft to an Air India aircraft. The bomb on CP Air aircraft had failed to explode in flight. [In a personal aside, the then-mayor of a BC city, and an acquaintance of mine, was onboard that CP Air flight. He said later that it was a close thing.]
Two other accused await trial in the Air India flight 182 disaster; they are scheduled to go to trial in March in BC. Ripudaman Singh Malik, a millionaire Vancouver businessman and Ajaif Singh Bagri, a Kamloops millwright face charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiring to cause bombs to be placed on various aircraft, and attempted murder. A fourth suspect, Talwinder Singh Parmar, a preacher from Burnaby BC and a Sikh militant, was killed by Indian police in a shootout in October 1992.
The Air India sentence was the catalyst for an uproar in the House Commons by members of the opposition opposed to the light sentence.
Canadian Alliance MP Chuck Cadman said, "Canadian justice has hit a new low. Thousands of people around the world, the families, the friends and the victims feel completely betrayed."
NDP MP, Lorne Nystrom said, "To suggest that less than five years is a just sentence for the murder of 329 people makes a mockery of our legal system. To release an ideological murderer on parole after three years is not justice but a farce." He added, "I urge the government to establish a board of inquiry to determine how our legal system has failed our reasonable standard of justice and public safety."
From Canadian Alliance MP Gurmant Grewal, " Where is the justice? For 17 years there has been no closure in this matter for the families of 329 victims of the bombing. Monday's decision will do nothing to relieve their pain and suffering. The wounds continue to remain open and bleed."
All the Liberal government's Justice Minister would offer was, "The Canadian population will understand that we cannot comment" and then pointed out that the Air India case remains before the courts. He added that the BC government is responsible for the prosecution.
A comfy home among greenery, a golf course, tennis courts, the prospect of early parole, and Inderjet Singh Reyat must be laughing at the stupidity of the Canadian government and its inept justice system. What does one have to do to live in such luxury? For openers, be convicted of causing the death of two baggage handlers at Tokyo's Narita Airport then plead guilty to manslaughter in the deaths of 329 innocent passengers onboard Air India flight 182.
In a follow-up to an earlier column in which two street racers were given light sentences after being found guilty in the death of a 59-year-old woman, information has come to light that one of the drivers was granted an interim licence while on bail. A condition of the bail was that Bahadur Bhairu be prohibited from driving. Twenty months after Irene Thorpe was killed, police clocked Bhairu driving 100 km/h in a 50-km zone. It seems that in BC, screw-ups follow one after the other.
Bob Orrick is a private tutor of English grammar, literature, poetry and Canadian history to off-shore youngsters. His pupils hail from such places as Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Venezuela. He was previously in international marketing, was a ministerial assistant to a provincial cabinet minister, spent a few years as a reporter then editor of a community newspaper and enjoyed a career in the Royal Canadian Navy.
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