Air India bomb maker launches appeal

Reuters

DESTROYED: A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stands watch near the wreckage of Air India Flight 182 that was bombed over the Atlantic in 1985.

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The only person convicted in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people off the coast of Ireland is asking the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn his perjury conviction.

Inderjit Singh Reyat had already served 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter for his role as the bomb maker. He was convicted of perjury in September 2010 and sentenced to another nine years in prison. He filed the appeal on Monday, local time.

Reyat was accused of lying during the 2003 trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, who were acquitted of mass murder in the bombing of Air India Flight 182. Another explosion at an airport in Tokyo killed two baggage handlers.

Prosecutors maintain the bombing was revenge by Sikh separatists for a deadly 1984 raid by Indian forces on the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest shrine.

- AP