- In Canada, it may be the law, but it's not justice.
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- Inderjit Singh Reyat has twice been convicted of manslaughter
for his role in providing bomb making material that, in 1985, led to the
deaths of 329 people in two bombing of airplanes by Sikh terrorists.
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- Reyat has scored the biggest sweetheart deal since Karla
Homolka. In February, he received a piddling five years in prison for pleading
guilty to manslaughter. He resides in a minimum security prison in B.C.
-- no solitary confinement. He was also to testify at the Air India trial.
His testimony was uncooperative and a joke. His memory failed him. According
to him, he had no idea what the bomb making equipment would be used for,
what the targets might be or who intended to use the lethal material. The
two Sikh defendants, in the great terrorist act ever committed in Canada,
must have laughed at the Crown's gullibility. Reyat had done them no harm.
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- Anyway, just two days from now, Reyat, having served
just 10 months is eligible to apply for unescorted leave from prison. By
next October, he may be out on full parole.
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- In contrast, Ernst Zundel will soon have completed 10
months in Canadian jails. Unlike, Reyat, the German pacifist publisher
is in solitary confinement, denied most writing materials and hard cover
books.
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- Unlike Reyat, he's been convicted of no crime. Unlike
Reyat, he's been charged with no crime.
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- Apparently, in politically-correct Canada, killing hundreds
of people is a minor detail. Attacking the ideas of our virtual secularist
theocracy, however, is another matter. Zundel is a dissident and must be
punished. Reyat was just a run-of-the-mill terrorist, and no threat to
the ideology of Canada's ruling elite or the minorities who direct them.
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- Here's my tongue-in-cheek proposal: Ernst Zundel should
plead guilty to manslaughter. He's already served 10 months. If for trying
to slay certain ideas, he were to get the same sentence as Reyat did for
his role in killing over 300 people, Ernst would be out by Christmas.
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- Paul Fromm Director Canadian Association For Free Expression
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- The Bomb Maker's Deal
- The Globe and Mail
Page A22
December 9, 2003
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- Canadians who suspect that Inderjit Singh Reyat received
the judicial deal of the century may soon have their suspicions confirmed.
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- Sentenced to five years for manslaughter in the deaths
of 329 people (on top of five years in pre-trial custody), the man who
helped build the bomb that blew up an Air-India jet on June 23, 1985, will
be eligible on Thursday for unescorted temporary absences from jail. That
will be just 10 months after he was sentenced, or one-sixth into his term.
He may apply for day parole in April, and full parole next October, one-third
of the way through his term.
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- But Mr. Reyat will have to apply to the National Parole
Board for these releases, even for the temporary absences. If he does,
the families of the victims will have the right to attend his hearings
before the parole board. This may require a very large room. These may
be the first parole-board hearings in Canadian history to require an auditorium.
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- To show that he is no longer dangerous, Mr. Reyat is
supposed to demonstrate insight into his behaviour. This may not be easy
for him to do. Anyone who witnessed Mr. Reyat's testimony in the trial
of the two remaining accused in the worst act of mass murder in Canadian
history knows that he is not a man given to troubling questions about himself.
Yes, he allowed, he had wondered whether his actions had contributed to
the deaths of 331 people (that figure includes two baggage handlers at
Tokyo's Narita Airport, also on June 23, 1985); but no, he had not bothered
to ask his two alleged co-conspirators, during their long days in jail
together. So obtuse was he that the Crown tried (and failed) to have him
declared a hostile witness.
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- As Mr. Reyat's case suggested, a man who claims to know
nothing, and wonder about nothing, may evade serious penalties for serious
crimes. (The maximum penalty for manslaughter is life in jail.) There are
echoes of the judicial deal of the previous century: the 12-year sentence
given to Karla Homolka, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the deaths
of three schoolgirls, including her sister, in the 1990s. But at least
in that case Ms. Homolka agreed to give testimony that would help convict
her co-conspirator, Paul Bernardo. Mr. Reyat, according to the Crown, promised
nothing. And he kept his word.
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- So the parole board will be asking for insight from the
man who said he helped make bombs but did not believe they would kill anyone.
If Mr. Reyat applies for early release, the ensuing spectacle will be a
reminder that Canadian justice missed the mark terribly on this one.
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