Air India probe crippled if MPs kill key part of anti-terror law

Vancouver: A key investigative tool being used to advance the 1985 Air India bombing probe will be lost Friday if provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act expire as expected, B.C. Solicitor General John Les said Wednesday.
The RCMP's Air India task force has been preparing for years to hold special investigative hearings allowed under the act, but would have to scrap its unless the law is extended.
The Liberals and other opposition parties have united to say they will not approve an extension of the special measure in the act, meaning it will die this week.
Les said the partisan politics may cost the RCMP and other police agencies a vital tool.
The RCMP in B.C. have been working since 2003 to hold investigative hearings into the Air India bombing.
After two men were acquitted in the terrorism plot two years, the Air India task force put "substantial money and resources" into preparing for investigative hearings.
The investigative hearing provision was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2004 after a challenge launched by the wife of Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man convicted in the Air India bombing.
Without the hearings, Les said police will yet again be shackled.
The Liberals originally introduced the legislation after the 9/11 U.S. terrorism attacks. But the party is now joining with other opponents over concerns about civil liberties.
Bob Rae, the former Ontario premier who ran for his party's leadership in December, said he thinks many MPs do not appreciate that the act is being used to further the Air India probe.
The Air India investigation in B.C. is separate from the AIr India judicial inquiry which is resuming in Ottawa nex't month after a 10-week break.
15/02/07 Kim Bolan/CanWest News Service/Vancouver Sun/Canada.com

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Categories: air india feb 2007, foreign feb 2007, safety feb 2007