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Canadian PM issues unqualified apology to kin of Air India victims | Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday issued an unqualified apology to the relatives of the victims of the Air India plane bombing of 1985.
The powerful and emotional apology was issued on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy
in Toronto. "I will make no attempt to make any sense of it. This was evil, perpetrated
by cowards, despicable, senseless and vicious," the Globe and Mail quoted Harper,
as saying on Wednesday evening at a Toronto ceremony for relatives of the 329
people, most of them Canadians, whose plane was bombed out of the sky on June
23, 1985, killing all aboard. What Harper did was give a long-awaited government
acknowledgement that the bombing - the worst act of mass murder in the country's
history - was a preventable, wholly Canadian crime, badly mishandled by federal
intelligence and police agencies. The tragedy was made worse, the Prime Minister
said, when "the families were for years after treated with scant respect or consideration"
by Canadian authorities. "I stand before you, therefore, to offer on behalf of
the Government of Canada, and all Canadians, an apology," he said. Air India Flight
182 left Canada and disintegrated at 31,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean after
a bomb, hidden in luggage, exploded. An hour earlier, another bomb, destined for
a second Air India plane on the other side of the world, exploded on the ground
at Tokyo's Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers and bringing the total
death toll to 331. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Ontario Premier Dalton
McGuinty accompanied the Prime Minister at the Toronto ceremony. The event was
held around an Air India monument in a city park on the shores of Lake Ontario.
Similar events were held Wednesday in Vancouver, Ottawa and in Ireland, where
families travelled after the plane exploded off the Irish coast. They went in
hope of claiming the remains of their loved ones, but just 131 bodies were recovered
from the ocean. Canadian authorities linked the bombings to Sikh extremists intent
on avenging anti-Sikh violence in India. The authorities had received advance
warnings that Indian planes would be targeted, but failed to stop the attacks.
Only one person has been convicted in relation to the bombings. Inderjit Singh
Reyat, an electrician from Duncan, B.C., was convicted of manslaughter for his
part in supplying the explosives placed in the two suitcases that originated at
Vancouver International Airport. In 2005, two British Columbia men, Ripudaman
Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted of mass murder and conspiracy
charges. Canada's mainstream Sikh community has repeatedly denounced the attacks,
which also killed several Sikh passengers aboard Flight 182. |
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