Kanishka prosecutor wants suspects’ wives to testify

The wives of suspects in the Air India bombing case should be called to testify about the activities of their husbands, prosecutor Joe Bellows has said. He said the wives could provide the best evidence on what their spouses discussed at one of the last meetings before the plane was blown up. According to the prosecution, defendant Ripudaman Singh Malik and suspect Hardial Singh Johal met at the home of the alleged Air India bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar on June 18, 1985, to go over plans for the bombing five days later that killed 331 people.

However, the defense lawyers have said the three met at the time to discuss a law suit against an Indo-Canadian newspaper. To back up their suggestion, they asked the court yesterday to accept an entry in a diary kept by Johal as evidence in the trial. ‘‘In the evening, there was a meeting about Indo-Canadian newspaper at (Parmar’s) house. Malik and others came,’’ Johal wrote in his diary on June 18, 1985. Bellows dismissed the entry as contrived, self-serving evidence that cannot be tested in cross-examination. Johal could have written the entry after the Air-India disaster in case he had to prove his innocence, Bellows said. — (PTI)