The Mounties were "gun-shy" in asking the Canadian Security Intelligence Service for information on the Air India bombing, but later presented a "positive front" on the two agencies' strained working relationship, a former RCMP commissioner told the public inquiry Thursday.
Norman Inkster, who headed the RCMP from 1987 until 1994, testified that the Mounties played down conflicts with Canada's spy agency during a 1992 review by the Security Intelligence Review Committee.
The watchdog group that monitors CSIS examined the turf wars that erupted between police and security officers during the investigation of the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182, which killed 329 people.
The former commissioner is the latest law enforcement official to highlight the frayed lines of communication between the RCMP and the intelligence agency, which conducted numerous surveillance operations on alleged Sikh extremists in the B.C. Lower Mainland who later became suspects in the bombing.
Inkster testified that around the time of the 1992 review, he and CSIS's new director, Reid Morden, were working to repair the strained relationship between the two agencies. He said it wouldn't have been in anybody's interest to have the Mounties and CSIS publicly criticizing each other.
"We undertook to do everything we possibly could to co-operate as fully as we could," he said. "No one wanted to say anything to upset that relationship … So we wanted to put a positive front on it as best we could, while recognizing we had very different mandates."
Inkster denied, however, that any crucial facts were withheld and said the committee was free to draw its own conclusions.
One of the key issues in the review was the erasure by CSIS of hundreds of pre-bombing wiretap tapes.
The review criticized the security service for the erasures but also said it was unlikely any important evidence was lost — a conclusion challenged by frontline RCMP investigators who thought the tapes could have provided valuable leads.
The current inquiry, headed by John Major, a former Supreme Court justice, is taking a fresh look at the investigation into the tragedy, but has no power to hold anyone criminally responsible.
With files from the Canadian PressRelated
Internal Links
More Canada Headlines »
- 'Shocking' Arctic ice melt year's top weather story: Environment Canada
- The top weather story of 2007 was about climate change, Environment Canada said Thursday in releasing its annual list of most important, widespread and most newsworthy events.
- Big consumer tax relief still years away: Flaherty
- It will take years before the federal government can bring in the kind of historic tax reductions for ordinary Canadians that it delivered for businesses in October, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said.
- Atlantic Canada braces for winter storm
- A winter storm is heading east, with parts of Atlantic Canada expected to be hit with heavy snow, rain and ice pellets.
- In Canada, shock and grief at Bhutto's death
- In Canada, people with roots in Pakistan struggle to adjust to the death of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
- Saskatoon police shoot 2nd person within a week
- A 35-year-old woman allegedly armed with knives was shot by Saskatoon police on Thursday, the second person to be shot by officers in less than a week.
Canada Features
Blog Watch
Most Blogged about CBC.ca Articles
Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - link will open in new window