VANCOUVER - The only man ever convicted for taking part in the horrific Air India bombings that killed 331 people had the perjury case against him delayed Wednesday.
Lawyers for Inderjit Singh Reyat say they're still not ready to proceed with his B.C. Supreme Court trial on charges he lied when he testified in 2003 at the trial of two other B.C. men acquitted of murder in the bombings.
Defence lawyer Ian Donaldson told Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm he could not go ahead on the scheduled Feb. 4 start date. The judge adjourned the case to March 7 to fix a trial date.
Neither Donaldson nor Crown spokesman Geoff Gaul gave reasons for the delay.
There had been widespread speculation that Reyat had reached a plea agreement. Family members said last week that they'd been told a deal had been reached.
"To speculate or to guess on what might happen is not productive and frankly from a prosecution's perspective is not appropriate,'' Gaul said outside court. "We're looking towards a trial date. That's what we're working towards.''
Donaldson told Dohm more work needs to be done before the defence is ready to proceed.
"There is a long history to this matter, there's no doubt about that, but I think we have to be cautious,'' said Gaul. "I think we have to be prepared obviously.''
Reyat, wearing glasses and his long beard streaked with grey, looked far different than in photos taken two decades ago. He appeared via video link from Matsqui prison, where he is serving the final weeks of a five-year manslaughter sentence in the bombing case.
He's due to be released Feb. 9 after serving his entire term.
Reyat's status with federal prison authorities "is beyond our scope,'' Gaul said.
"If the issue of Mr. Reyat's custodial status becomes an issue then it'll be addressed in court.''
Reyat, a one-time electrician, was charged with perjury almost two years ago.
The indictment against him listed 27 instances in which he is alleged to have lied while testifying at the trial of Vancouver businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik and Kamloops mill worker Ajaib Singh Bagri.
Malik and Bagri were acquitted of first-degree murder and conspiracy.
Reyat testified he did not know or recall details of the alleged conspiracy -- testimony the Crown called a "pack of lies.''
He is the only person ever convicted in the bombing of Air India flight 182, which exploded over the Atlantic Ocean off the Irish coast on June 23, 1985.
The bombing, the largest mass murder in Canadian history and the largest single act of aerial terrorism before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, killed 329 people, most of them Canadians.
A second bomb exploded at Tokyo's Narita airport the same day, killing two baggage handlers as they were transferring a suitcase to another Air India flight.
Reyat, who was arrested in 1988 and extradited from Britain, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1991 for manslaughter in the Narita deaths.
His current five-year term was the product of a controversial 2003 deal that saw him plead guilty to manslaughter in the Flight 182 deaths.
Reyat admitted he acquired material to help others make a bomb, but he did not admit to making the bomb or knowing who did.
The formal deal accepted by the prosecutor explicitly stated that Reyat at no time intended by his actions to cause death or believed that such consequences were likely to occur.
The attacks were believed to be the work of militant Sikh separatists fighting for an independent state in India's Punjab, and retaliation for the Indian military's attack on the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest shrine.
The bombings' purported mastermind, Talwinder Singh Parmar, was killed by police in India in 1992 after returning there from Canada.
The B.C. government is also suing Malik to recover $1.6 million in unpaid legal fees, while Malik is suing the federal and provincial governments for malicious prosecution.
