Two cleared of Air India bombing

A Canadian judge cleared two Sikh militants yesterday of involvement in the 1985 downing of an Air India flight off the Irish coast, history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airliner, ruling the testimony against them was not credible. British...

A Canadian judge cleared two Sikh militants yesterday of involvement in the 1985 downing of an Air India flight off the Irish coast, history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airliner, ruling the testimony against them was not credible.

British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Bruce Ian Josephson found Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty of murder and conspiracy charges in the bombing and a related explosion at a Japanese airport.

Members of the victims' families wept in the Vancouver courtroom as the judge read the verdicts following a 19-month trial. Mr Malik, 58, and Mr Bagri, 55, smiled at their own family members.

"Oh my God. Oh my God," one of the victims' relatives cried to herself.

One mid-air explosion off Ireland killed all 329 people on board Air India flight 182. The other bomb exploded in luggage at Tokyo's Narita airport and killed two workers.

Mr Josephson, who heard 115 witnesses during one of the most complicated and costly cases in Canadian history, called the bombing "fanaticism at its basest and most inhumane level."

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