The Verdict

Ripudiman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were found not guilty of all eight criminal charges connected to a pair of deadly blasts directed at Air India airliners in 1985 that killed 331 people.

Addressing the heavily-guarded Vancouver courtroom packed with reporters and relatives of both victims, Justice Ian Bruce Josephson said: "Words are incapable of adequately conveying the senseless horror of these crimes."

Ripudiman Singh Malik

The hundreds of passengers and crew who perished as a result, he added, "were entirely innocent victims of a diabolical act of terrorism unparalleled until recently in aviation history and finding its roots in fanaticism at its basest and most inhumane level."

But as victims' families gasped and wiped tears from their eyes, the B.C. Supreme Court judge said while he believed the prosecution had proven both bombs originated in Vancouver, he could not find any of the key witnesses credible.

Ajaib Singh Bagri

And therefore he believed the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Malik and Bagri were involved.

"Despite the horrific nature of the alleged crimes, there can be no lowering of the standard of proof from that required in any criminal trial," he said.

"Justice is not achieved ... if persons are convicted on anything less than the requisite standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.... The evidence has fallen markedly short of that standard."

Bagri's lawyer Michael Code told reporters after the verdict: "There was a complete absence of any hard evidence. No forensic evidence, no contemporaneous evidence, and then it turned on the weakness of the after-the-fact evidence."

Alleged confessions re-told by the Crown's key witnesses -- including a former employee of Malik known as Ms. D -- failed to support their arguments, Justice Josephson said.

Not only was their testimony unreliable, Josephson said they were often contradictory and therefore not credible.

He added that evidence provided by Ms. D -- that she still loves and respects the sawmill worker from Kamloops and was betraying him by testifying -- was unbelievable from such a strong, intelligent woman.

"That surprise edges toward incredulity," said the judge. "She has not been truthful with court and I am unable to rely on her evidence."

Bagri, Malik respond

Bagri's youngest daughter, Inderjeet Kaur-Bagri, read a statement outside the court on behalf of her 55-year-old father as he stood next to her.

"The past four and a half years have been very difficult for me and my family. I have been accused of horrendous crimes and have been in prison for over four years while these charges were before the court," she read from the prepared statement.

"In 1985 when these terrible events occurred, I was a passionate advocate for an independent homeland for the Sikh people. I want to repeat publicly today . . . that I had absolutely no involvement in any of these criminal activities. The loss of so many innocent lives, resulting from these events, is an enormous tragedy...."

"It is my hope that the completion of these legal proceedings will now allow healing to begin."

Malik, a 58-year-old wealthy Vancouver businessman, did not utter a word to the throng of reporters surrounding him as he was escorted into a black Mercedes waiting outside the court.

But his family released a statement on the website http://www.notguilty.org/, where they thank the judge for his decision and say they're proud of the way Malik handled himself throughout the ordeal.

"Over the last four and a half years our family has remained confident that justice would prevail. With the grace of God, it has," reads the statement.

Calls for appeal

It's been widely speculated that an appeal of the verdict will be launched in a higher court.

At an Ottawa news conference, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper called the verdict a "sad reminder for many that there is still a feeling that justice had not been done."

He urged the B.C. government to closely examine the judge's ruling and to determine if there are any avenues of appeal.

Crown Counsel spokesperson Geoff Gaul told reporters it's premature to discuss whether or not an appeal will be launched, and that senior crown counsel will first have to review the reasons for judgment.

The Crown has 30 days in which to file an appeal.

B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant defended the Crown prosecutors who worked on the case, saying they did an admirable job organizing and presenting "probably the most complex criminal case in Canadian history."

But Plant conceded it was a difficult day for the justice system.

"I know there's a real sense of incompleteness for many people here because we know that something terrible happened," he said.

"We don't know who did it. That is a challenge, but the justice system, I think, has done what we want it to do."

Bagri's lawyers said they doubt there will be an appeal because the case was decided on the basis of credibility, and it's hard to see that the judge made any errors in law.

Josephson's verdict comes after 233 trial days and 115 witnesses.

Malik and Bagri were charged in Oct. 2000, almost 15 years after a mid-air bomb blast sent the Mumbai-bound Flight 182 hurtling from 31,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland.

All 329 passengers and crew, including more than 80 children, were killed.

Less than an hour earlier, at Tokyo, Japan's Narita airport, two baggage handlers died and four others were injured when a bomb detonated inside a bag being loaded onto Air India flight 301.

During trial, Crown prosecutors argued that Malik and Bagri, both Sikh extremists, planted the bombs as revenge killings for a deadly Indian attack on the holy Sikh Golden Temple of Amritsar in 1984.

In turn, the defence conceded the possibility of a conspiracy to destroy the two planes, but denied Malik and Bagri had any involvement.

The only other person charged and convicted in connection with the 1985 bombings is Inderjit Singh Reyat.

He had been slated to stand trial alongside Malik and Bagri, but in February 2003, he pleaded guilty to a reduced manslaughter charge.

Admitting that he supplied parts for the bomb that brought down Flight 182, he was sentenced to five years.

Reyat had already been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the Narita airport explosion.

Later, when he was called as a witness in the trial, Reyat said he had bought parts to make a bomb without knowing who was going to use them. The crown failed in its attempt to have him declared a hostile witness.

Investigators maintain that the deadly plot had been hatched by the B.C.-based founder of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa, Talwinder Singh Parmar. He was reported killed in a shootout with Indian police in October 1992.

The group has since been outlawed in Canada.

Before the Sept. 2001, attacks in the United States, the 1985 Air India bombing bore the grim distinction of being the single deadliest modern act of terror. It still stands as history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airliner.

With files from CTV News and The Canadian Press