Inderjit Singh Reyat in July 2008.DARRYL DYCK
A man acquitted of the Air India bombing was making regular payments to the wife of a man who is now charged with perjury for lying at his trial, jurors heard Monday.
Inderjit Singh Reyat is accused of lying repeatedly at the trial of two men charged with mass murder.
On Monday, his perjury trial heard he knew one of them, Ripudaman Singh Malik, was paying his wife.
Mr. Reyat, a Duncan, B.C., auto electrician, was subpoenaed to testify in September 2003, and Mr. Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were later acquitted.
Jurors at the perjury trial have listened to Mr. Reyat's testimony in which he repeatedly testified he couldn't remember details of the events that led up to two Air India bombings that killed 331 people on June 23, 1985
In 2006, Mr. Reyat was charged with perjury.
His trial is unusual because there are no witnesses and the jury is relying on recordings of his three days on the stand.
The Crown maintains he lied 19 times while under oath, even saying he never knew the name of a Mr. X who stayed at his home for almost a week and with whom Mr. Reyat went shopping for bomb parts.
Mr. Reyat testified he learned his wife was getting money after he was sentenced in 1991 to a decade in prison for his role in the deaths of two baggage handlers when a suitcase meant for an Air India plane exploded at Tokyo's Narita Airport.
About an hour later, another explosion occurred aboard Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland, killing 329 people.
In the recording, Crown lawyer Len Doust asked Mr. Reyat how his wife supported herself and their four children when he was behind bars.
"She was working in the pre-school," Mr. Reyat said, later adding he knew Mr. Malik was paying her but never asked him or his wife, Satnam Kaur Reyat, how much money was changing hands.
"She did mention something to me," he said. "I can't recall how much she told me."
Mr. Doust also questioned Mr. Reyat on where he got the money to pay a lawyer a retainer of up to $90,000 to appeal his Narita bombing conviction.
"Do you know if Mr. Malik paid any part of it?"
Mr. Reyat said the money was raised by the Sikh community.
Mr. Doust also said phone records showed there were seven calls between the Mr. Reyat and Mr. Malik homes between May 1984 and November 1985, two days before Mr. Reyat was arrested for the Narita bombing.
"The information that we have is that Mr. Malik tried to get you to construct the bombs for these incidents," Mr. Doust said referring to the Air India bombings.
Mr. Reyat denied that was the case.
He said the phone conversations were regarding Mr. Malik's request that he contribute some money to establish a credit union Mr. Malik was fronting. Mr. Reyat said he didn't contribute.
Mr. Reyat also said he never talked to Mr. Malik or Mr. Bagri about the bombings, even though they were all in the same jail together.
He testified earlier in the trial that Talwinder Singh Parmar, a leader of a Sikh separatist group, asked him to gather material to make an explosive device that could blow up a bridge or something heavy in India.
He said he and Mr. Parmar discussed the construction of a bomb after the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, killing thousands of innocent Sikhs.
Mr. Reyat said that when he learned of the two bombings, he wasn't concerned about whether any of the explosive components he'd collected were used to kill 331 people.
Mr. Doust repeatedly asked Mr. Reyat how he could possibly have ignored the fact that he was involved because he'd acquired materials for explosive devices and built test bombs shortly before the bombings took place.
"Didn't that thought ever cross your mind, even once?" he said.
Mr. Reyat said he didn't think of his involvement until police found evidence to link him to the Narita bombing and arrested him in November 1985.
The trial has heard Mr. Reyat bought two 12-volt batteries in Burnaby, B.C., on the morning of the Air India disasters and that remnants of a 12-volt battery were found in the Narita bomb.
The bombs were thought to have been part of a plot to strike back at the Indian government for its bloody June 1984 raid on the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the holiest Sikh shrine, which was being used as a haven by armed Sikh separatists.