Tuesday, March 15, 2005

A 20-year wait for justice

CBC News Indepth: Air India - Bombing of Air India Flight 182
All of Canada is waiting for this verdict -- almost 20 years after the bomb exploded, causing the deaths of 329 people, mostly Canadians.
I remember, the week after this happened, that Maclean's magazine didn't even make this their cover story -- they just ran a banner at the top "Air India disaster" -- you wouldn't even have known that Canadians died.
Twenty years ago, the fact that the people on this plane were East Indians was more important than the fact that they were Canadians.
Ten years ago, a lot of people seemed to have forgotten that no one had ever been prosecuted for this crime.
Finally, people got angry enough to demand action. I think the failure to prosecute was likely not because they didn't know who did it, but rather because prosecutors were concerned that the screwups with the evidence jeopardized a successful prosecution. So we'll see tomorrow whether the Crown's case was good enough -- but at least they tried.
UPDATE - Well the verdict is in, and it is as I feared. Perhaps the Scottish "not proven" would fit the case the best. And see this excellent post by Ross No Guantanamos Allowed I hadn't thought of this point, but he is absolutely right.

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