| An FBI informant told a Canadian court on Monday that Sikh separatist Ajaib Singh Bagri admitted to destroying Air India Flight 182, a 1985 attack that killed 329 people in history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airliner. The man, whose name is shielded by court order, said he met Bagri at a New Jersey gas station "a couple of weeks" after the bombing to express concern that New York-area Sikh independence groups were being blamed for the attack. "He said: 'Why they heck are they bothering you. We did this'," the man quoted Bagri, a prominent figure in the Babbar Khalsa militant group in Canada, as telling him in mixture of Punjabi and English. .... Bagri and co-accused Ripudaman Singh Malik have pleaded not guilty to murder charges stemming from the June 1985 attack on Flight 182, which blew up off the Irish coast while on a flight from Canada to India via London. They are also charged with an attempt to destroy a second Air India flight at the same time. That bomb killed two airport workers in Tokyo. The bombings are alleged by police to be the work of Canadian-based Sikh separatists as revenge for the Indian Army's 1984 attack on the Golden Temple in Punjab, the religion's holiest shrine. Bagri's attorneys have already dismissed the witness as unreliable because he agreed to come to Canada from the United States to testify only after Canadian authorities agreed to pay him $300,000. The witness admitted on Monday the FBI helped him enter and leave the United States even though it new he was an illegal immigrant. ..... |