RCMP Watch

Jim Brown, Ottawa (Canadian Press) - The RCMP told a reluctant witness in the Air India bombing that if she tried to back out of a commitment to testify against a key suspect she could be arrested and forced to appear in court.But Insp. Doug Best, appearing Wednesday at a public inquiry, insisted his words had to be viewed “in context” and he didn’t mean them as a threat. The message he actually meant to convey, said Best, was that “clearly we would not want to be arresting a witness that we wanted to come to court.

“Obviously, if you failed to show up we would have to issue an arrest warrant. But it wasn’t said in any kind of threatening manner, nor did I take it that it was perceived in that manner.”

The comment about possible arrest, recorded in Best’s notebook from March 1998, came during a meeting with a woman identified only as Ms. E who had become the main witness against Ajaib Singh Bagri, one of the prime suspects in the 1985 bombing that took 329 lives.

It followed an exchange in which the woman and her husband informed Best they had retained a lawyer to advise them - a step the Mountie acknowledged was “their privilege.”

Anil Kapoor, one of the legal team for the inquiry headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major, was clearly taken aback by the interpretation Best put on his remarks about potential arrest.

“What’s the point of saying that?” Kapoor interjected. “There’s no point in saying that to this person, is there?”

Best calmly reiterated that he never intended to put pressure on his star witness. “My dialogue with her always - and my demeanour with her, as was hers with me - was quite cordial.”

Ironically, Best was testifying from behind a white curtain that concealed his facial features. Federal lawyers explained that was necessary for unspecified “operational reasons” related to his continuing duties with the RCMP.

Documents tabled a the inquiry show the Mounties first approached Ms. E within months of the downing of Air India Flight 182. They believed, although she denied it, that she was involved in a love affair with Bagri and thought she could provide them with information about him.

After two meetings, they concluded she knew nothing that would help them advance their investigation. But that changed five years later, when they discovered she had made incriminating statements about Bagri to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

She told CSIS investigator Willy Laurie in fall 1987 that Bagri had come to her house the night before the plane was blown from the sky and asked to borrow her car to take some luggage to the airport. She refused, but concluded when she heard of the bombing the next day that he had been involved.

She also told Laurie she would never co-operate with the RCMP and wouldn’t testify in court because she feared Bagri would kill her and her children. She went so far as to declare that she would commit suicide before going to court, so that at least her children would be safe.

The Mounties met twice with Ms. E in 1990, but found she had changed some details of her story in an apparent effort to throw them off the track. They concluded she would not make a reliable witness at that point.

They also suggested, in a written report, her reluctance might be more out of fear her affair would be revealed than out of fear for her safety.

Staff Sgt. Bart Blachford, who participated in the 1990 effort, told the inquiry he made another approach to Ms. E in 1992, but she wouldn’t meet with him. Instead she expressed a desire to talk to Laurie - who by now had transferred from CSIS to the RCMP. Blachford told her he was no longer involved in the case.

The RCMP wanted to draw a clear line between her previous dealings with CSIS, in which Laurie had promised her anonymity, and the new effort to obtain a statement that could be used in court.

The force also ignored an offer by former sergeant Fred Maile, who had spoken to Ms. E at one point and gained her confidence, to come out of retirement and help. Blachford said he wasn’t even told by his superiors that Maile had made the offer.

When Best took over the file in 1996, he brought Laurie back into the picture - along with another Mountie who knew Ms. E personally and had been her son’s hockey coach - to help in the next round of interviews.

After an emotional, five-hour meeting in January 1997 she finally agreed to give a terse, one-page written statement that could serve as a legal basis for an eventual appearance in court.

Best was fearful that she could change her mind, however, and continued to drop in on her periodically for the next two years - at one point even arranging RCMP surveillance of her movements so he could orchestrate a “chance” meeting at the grocery store.

Best ceased his contact in early 1999 when the woman’s husband bluntly told him to talk to their lawyer from then on.

Ms. E did appear as a witness when Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik were prosecuted for the bombing. But she testified that she couldn’t remember most of what she had previously told her interrogators.

Bagri and Malik were acquitted of all charges in 2005, and the current inquiry has no power to revisit that verdict or hold anyone criminally responsible for the bombing.

The Mounties say they’ve done all they can to ensure the safety of Ms. E, including arranging for police patrols around her house. They also say she refused their offer of entering a formal witness protection program.