We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
INDERJIT SINGH REYAT, the only person ever to be convicted for the 1985 Air India bombings, has been released from a Canadian prison after serving two decades behind bars.
A spokesman for the Parole Board of Canada confirmed Reyat’s statutory release after serving two-thirds of a nine-year sentence for his involvement in one of the deadliest airline attacks in history.
Reyat, a Sikh immigrant to Canada, previously served more than 15 years in prison for making the bombs that were stuffed into two suitcases and planted on planes leaving Vancouver.
One bomb tore apart Air India Flight 182 as it neared the Irish coast, killing all 329 people aboard, on 23 June 1985. The second exploded at Japan’s Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers as they transferred cargo.
The attack took place during an Indian crackdown on Sikhs fighting for an independent homeland, and those behind it were allegedly seeking revenge for the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar by Indian troops.
Halfway house
Reyat has been ordered to live at a halfway house until August 2018 when his perjury sentence would normally expire, and abide by several conditions set by the parole board, including having no contact with victims’ families or alleged former co-conspirators, and no political activities.
He must also obtain counselling to address violent tendencies, a lack of empathy and “cognitive distortions” or what one official described as his exaggerated beliefs.
“If at any time, his parole officer feels there’s a risk to the community he can return Mr Reyat to prison,” parole board spokesman Patrick Storey told AFP.
Mass murder
In 2010, Reyat was convicted of lying while testifying in the mass murder trial of alleged co-conspirators Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, who were later acquitted for a lack of evidence.
He had avoided being tried alongside the pair by pleading guilty to a lesser manslaughter charge.
Prosecutors have said the verdict in the trial of Malik and Bagri would have been different if Reyat had told the truth on the stand when called to testify about the plot, while Judge Ian Josephson called him “an unmitigated liar”.
Reyat’s nine-year perjury sentence was the longest ever handed down by a Canadian court.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Seriously? You can bomb a plane killing everyone and still get out in less than 20 years?
And how is it the longest sentence handed down by a Canadian court?!!
im sure he’s a reformed Sikh
That what the Canadians do….their yank neighbors would have given him the the chair and rightly so.
Apparently they have a low reoffender rate too.
He’s probably having a coffee down in Starbucks right now. Meanwhile the prison sentence he gave everyone affected will continue forever
@TokezBurke longest sentence handed down by a Canadian court for perjury
Yes, if you’re a member of a ‘persecuted minority’.
Makes me Sikh.
Excuse my stupidity
Did you read the article? Lingest sentence for perjury
I love these guys who go around blowing up innocents instead of fighting the actual people who they’re peeved with! Fine brave men altogether!
So you murder 329 people on one plane and try to blow up a second but you still get out on parole? Seriously? Seems the Irish courts aren’t the only ones to care more about the wellbeing of the criminal than their victims.
Same in every ‘Western’ country…. I’ve gone to the trouble of checking it out. Meanwhile the victims get criminalised like the girl in Denmark who’s being prosecuted for using pepper spray on a would-be rapist.
Orwell foresaw all of this…..
Please don’t attribute any of your rantings to George Orwell, I am pretty were he alive today he would take issue with anyone of consequence who had expressed opinions like yours
A little less than 20 deaths per year in prison. That’s so wrong.
3 weeks per murder … It’s sickening !
The families of the dead still visit West Cork every year to commemorate their loved ones and now he is left free from prison. They got a much worse sentence than he ever could
This is crazy, he killed hundreds of people? Why on earth should/would he ever be let out??
Watched a documentary about the case a number of years ago, a man who’s wife and daughter were killed in the explosion said when he entered the airport he thought it odd that all the Sikhs were taking the British Airways flight as if they all knew something he didn’t……..
Those poor kids on that flight. Was next to a kid last night on a flight crying because of the ear pain she was enduring but at least we landed safe and secure.Life just ain’t fair for some poor kids.
That monster should have been tortured and strung up in a public square
They should drop him from a plane were the 747 went down.
Wow, it does not seem that long ago.
There is a beautiful wood tapestry in the entrance/reception area of the CUH/Cork Regional Hospital.
Each Elephant representing a human life lost.
http://www.sikhtimes.com/bios_021103a.html Some background information on him and how he believes he done nothing wrong.
Air India Flight 182 had five engines.
A fifth pod “service engine” was being transported at the time.
http://www.airlinereporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Qantas-5th-Engine-400×239.jpg
You’re not THE Frank….are you?
If so he’ll be along any second to explain how 182 and 5 can be combined in some obscure way to reveal the mark of the beast….
those Indians are feckin nutjobs
I am sure that there are gangs in this country that would condone such actions.
have your say