A Sikh activist has been jailed for five years after becoming the first person to plead guilty to the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight off Co Cork, killing all 329 passengers and crew.
Inderjit Singh Reyat (51) pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 1985 attack, admitting he had helped acquire materials used to make the bomb. But prosecutors said Reyat did not know who made the bomb and thought the equipment would be used to make bombs for use in India and not to down a commercial airliner.
The downing of Flight 182 was the world's deadliest act of aviation sabotage before September 11th attacks when the Boeing 747 exploded over the Atlantic coast of Ireland on June 23rd, 1985. Fewer than half the bodies were recovered.
The surprise plea in a Montreal court yesterday came less than two months before Reyat and two other men were set to stand trial on murder charges.
The bombing, as well as a parallel blast an hour before that killed two workers at Tokyo's Narita airport, were alleged to be the work of Sikh separatists seeking revenge for the Indian Army's 1984 storming of the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine.
Police alleged that both bombs were built in British Columbia and loaded on to Canadian flights that connected with Air India jets by an unknown man who paid cash for the tickets but did not board the aircraft himself.
Reyat, has already served 10 years on a manslaughter conviction for helping to build the Tokyo airport bomb.
The other defendants, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were not at the hearing.