Law May Hamper Air India Bomber Case

V A N C O U V E R , Canada, Nov. 2 -- Canada is preparing to charge the man suspected of making the bomb that caused history’s worst case of aviation sabotage — but a legal wrangle may prevent the motion for a while.

Last week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged two fundamentalist Sikhs with 329 counts of murder in connection with the June 23, 1985 blast on Air India Flight 182. The blast killed everyone aboard the plane.

The RCMP’s Air Disaster Task Force now suspects former Duncan, British Columbia auto-mechanic Inderjit Singh Reyat of building the bomb that downed the Boeing 747.

The Mounties would like to charge Reyat, but when he was arrested in England in 1989, Canada only sought his extradition on the accusation of making a bomb that exploded prematurely the same day at Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

That bomb killed two Japanese baggage handlers while a bag containing the explosive was being moved to a waiting Air India Flight to Bangkok.

Reyat was extradited from England to Canada in 1990, but Canada may not be able charge Reyat with making the bomb that destroyed the Air India Flight without going through the whole extradition process again.

Lawyers Say Fresh Counts Illegal

Reyat’s lawyer in London, England, Harjit Singh, and his lawyer in Vancouver, Kuldip Chaggar both tell ABCNEWS that extradition laws preclude the piling on of additional charges that were not specified when Reyat was brought back to Canada.

“I don’t think he can be charged with any fresh counts because he was taken back on the understanding the charges against him were the ones specified in the extradition warrant,” Singh said in an interview from his London home.

“He has been convicted and sentenced on that warrant on charges of making the bomb that blew up in Tokyo — that warrant has now been exhausted.”

ABCNEWS has learned Canadian authorities have now hired Clive Nicholls, a renowned British barrister who is an expert on extradition laws, to seek his opinion on whether a legal shortcut is available that would prevent Reyat’s return from a British Columbia jail back to Britain forcing a new extradition hearing.