Perjury trials in Air India 'Kanishla' bombing case halted

Vancouver, Mar 9 (ANI): The perjury trial of Inderjit Singh Reyat in the Air India bombing case, the bloodiest unsolved crime in Canadian history, has been stalled.

Reyat was the only person jailed in the killing of 331 passengers in the Air India bombing and released last year.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has dismissed the jury in the perjury trial of Reyat before jurors had a chance to hear any evidence.

Reyat faces charges of perjury for allegedly lying at the trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, Globe and Mail reports.

Malik and Bagri were acquitted of all charges connected with the 1985 bombing of the Air India plane and another explosion at a Tokyo airport that took the lives of 331 people, mostly Canadians.

Reyat was called as a Crown witness at the trial, but the indictment for his perjury charge lists 27 instances in which he is alleged to have lied under oath, mostly dealing with his insistence that he didn't remember details of the bombing plot or the name of one of the men involved.

Reyat, an electrician from Duncan, B.C., was charged with perjury in February 2006, nearly a year after the acquittals.

His trial has been delayed several times as lawyers prepared for the case, but jury selection last week set the stage for hearings to begin in a Vancouver courtroom on Monday. (ANI)