Two Skihs plead not guilty to murder of 329 people

THE two men accused of masterminding the aircraft’s destruction have pleaded not guilty to murder in a Vancouver court.

Ajaib Singh Bagri, a 53-year-old Sikh sawmill worker from British Columbia's interior, and Ripudaman Singh Malik, a 56-year-old Sikh millionaire from Vancouver, sat side by side behind bulletproof glass as they pleaded not guilty.

In opening arguments, the prosecution laid out its case against the two.

"This trial involves a criminal conspiracy and acts of terrorism," senior counsel Bob Wright told Justice Bruce Josephson.

"Those acts resulted in two explosions. The first at Narita airport, the second, 54 minutes later off the coast of Ireland at an altitude of 31,000 feet."

All 329 people on board Air India Flight 182 were killed.

Mr Wright told Justice Josephson the crown's case would be divided into five sections. The first would address events leading up to the doomed flight's voyage. It left Vancouver on June 22, 1985, before stopping in Toronto and Montreal en route to London and finally India.

Other areas will deal with the Sikh militant conspiracy that set the bombing in motion, and the prosecution's specific evidence against Malik and Bagri. "You will hear over the course of the trial, evidence that the explosive device that brought down the flight was made from a variety of materials that originated in British Columbia," Mr Wright said.

He also outlined the crown's allegations of why Malik, Bagri and others conspired to blow up the Indian-government owned plane. The crash, he said, was the result of a crusade by a militant faction agitating for a separate Sikh state in India seeking revenge for an October 1984 Indian military assault ordered by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on the Golden Temple in Punjab. The temple is Sikhism's holiest shrine.

"Ajaib Singh Bagri made a speech in New York," Wright said. " In that July 1984 speech, Bagri tells his audience: 'Until we kill 50,000 Hindus, we will not rest. Death to Hindu traitors.'"

David Crossin, representing Malik, told the judge the crown's case, even after 17 years of the most complex criminal investigation in Canadian history, hinges solely on testimony that his client confessed to planning the bombing. Testimony, Mr Crossin alleged, that will come from less-than-credible witnesses.

The trial continues today.