Air India probe hit by further delay

Ottawa: A long-delayed probe of the 1985 Air India bombing has hit another snag, as counsel for the commission of inquiry and the federal government haggle over how much of the evidence can be made public.
The inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major, has been in recess for over three months. It is scheduled to resume with a brief public hearing Monday.
But sources say the proceedings will be limited to formal statements by the parties involved, including Mark Freiman, the chief counsel for Major, and lawyers for the government and the families of the bomb victims.
The plan had been to go on after that to hear from present and former members of the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. But their testimony will now be postponed for another two weeks.
It’s hoped that, in the meantime, there can be a meeting of minds on two points — the vetting of written documents to safeguard national security, and the extent of oral testimony that will be heard in open session.
Government lawyers warned last fall they would insist that some witnesses be heard behind closed doors, and some documentation remain secret because of continuing security concerns — even though many of the matters under scrutiny are two decades old.
Major, for his part, has said repeatedly he wants most of the proceedings to be accessible to the families who lost loved ones and to the media.
18/02/07 Jim Brown/The Canadian Press/National Post, Canada

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