New Air India Claim: Cdn. Spy Agency Knew Bomb Was Coming
Posted May 17, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There are more allegations that the agency designed to protect Canadians had advance knowledge that the Air India bombing was going to happen. The latest evidence comes from a man named Graham Pinos, a former lawyer for the federal government. He told the inquiry looking into the 1985 disaster that claimed 329 lives that this country’s spy agency, CSIS, was aware of the plot.
Pinos claims he was told by a senior investigator for the counter-terrorism branch of the agency in 1985 that there were fears Sikh extremists would try and blow up a plane at some point. When the worst actually happened on June 23rd of that year, Pinos remembers his reaction: “Holy [expletive!] They knew, they knew. I had a distinct impression that they knew something was going to happen.”
The man the witness claims told him about the warning was named Mel Deschenes. He’s still alive but is plagued by age and a failing memory – and won’t be available to testify at the hearing. Pinos was sitting with Deschenes at a hotel swimming pool in Los Angeles when the revelation slipped out. The CSIS rep was talking about the dangers of Sikh extremists when he commented that “they would bring a plane down.”
“I have an absolutely clear recollection of the event and the circumstances,” Pinos recalls. “It was something that shocked me.” Four days later, Air India Flight 182 went down off the coast of Ireland.
Michael Anne MacDonald, once an Ontario Crown attorney, had an eerily similar chat with Deschenes. She recalls the CSIS agent telling her he had to catch an immediate flight to B.C. because of an “urgent problem with Sikh extremists in Vancouver.” When she learned just days later that a bomb had destroyed the plane, she was incredulous. “I was extremely distressed,” she responds. “My immediate reaction was: ‘Even when they know something is going to happen, they can’t stop it’ … It was seared in my mind. They knew. They knew. They knew.”
But in a 1988 statement, Deschenes insisted that there was never any advance warning. “It is true that Sikh extremism was becoming an increasing concern at the time,” he wrote. “But I was certainly not aware of any specific or immediate threat.”
It’s the latest damning evidence that government officials either knew or should have known about the plot. Earlier this month, now-Ontario Lt. Governor James Bartleman testified he saw a bulletin warning of a similar terror attack on an Air India flight, but when he informed an R.C.M.P. officer, he was told they were aware of it – and he shouldn’t try to tell the Mounties how to do their jobs.
The families of the victims have criticized Bartleman for staying quiet for more than two decades and accuse the government of racism for not pursuing the leads further. “We’re very frustrated, very upset that nothing has been done all this time, even though there’s been information from the mid-80s prior to the bombing that something could have been done,” exhorts Rob Alexander, who lost his father that day.
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