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Thursday,
May 15, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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KANISHKA CASE Pak asked to show political courage
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FBI sleuths head for Riyadh
Al-Qaida can strike at will: US experts
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KANISHKA CASE Vancouver, May 14 Mr Sodhi Singh Sodhi testified that while he knew several people with alleged ties to the bombing, he knew nothing about the plot to blow up the Kanishka flight. The British Colombia Supreme Court hearing the case was told yesterday that Mr Sodhi’s telephone number was left as a contact when two plane tickets were purchased over phone from Canadian Pacific Airlines in June 1985. The court also heard that Mr Sodhi, a one-time member of the International Sikh Youth Federation, had been identified as resembling the individual who paid for the tickets at the airline’s Vancouver office. However, Mr Sodhi denied any involvement. An explosives expert told the court on Monday that the screening system in Toronto that scanned hand-held baggages prior to the ‘Kanishka’ tragedy was “useless”. Mr Tim Sheldon, a British expert in explosion-detection equipment, yesterday told the court hearing the trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, accused of masterminding the bombings, that the hand-held baggage screening device in Toronto to detect any explosives going aboard the flight was useless as a bomb detector. In a test three years later, the so-called “sniffer” wand failed to consistently reveal explosives, Mr Sheldon told the Supreme Court. He concluded that even though the devices were “in widespread use, they should in no way be regarded as effective as anything other than a deterrent” to anyone who thought they might work. “What I’m saying here is that the instrument did not distinguish ... between explosives and dummy packages,” he told Justice Ian Bruce Josephson. The trial heard earlier on Monday from Naseem Nanji, a former Burns Security employee at Lester B. Pearson International Airport, that up to half the bags destined for Air-India Flight 181 renamed Flight 182, when it reached Montreal, had been examined by a standing X-ray machine when “it just shut off on its own.” A short, wand-like instrument was used in its place, and waved over suitcases while she and a colleague listened for “the long whistling sound” that an Air-India security official had told them would signal explosives, Naseem Nanji said. “We heard some short beeps. But I did not hear any long, whistling sound. That’s what we were supposed to be watching for.” Vancouver ticket agent Jeanne Bakermans had testified earlier that she bent rules and unwittingly cleared the way for luggage housing the bomb to be transferred to the Air-India plane in Toronto.
PTI |
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Pak asked to show political courage Silicon Valley (USA), May 14 “Credit for the initiative to reduce tensions goes to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, now 78 and, no doubt, hoping for a peacemaker’s niche in history,” The Los Angeles Times said, adding Mr Vajpayee’s previous two attempts to improve relations had been rebuffed by Pakistan. Pointing out the close ties between Pakistan and China, the paper said Mr Vajpayee’s proposed visit to Beijing next month should also contribute towards improving ties between India and Pakistan. “Improved relations between China and India could reduce support for Pakistani saber rattling,” it said. The paper encouraged India and Pakistan to try to agree on the less nettlesome problems first, including improving trade, sharing water supplies and exchanging cultural visits, leaving the Kashmir issue for later. The two countries, the paper said, would benefit from spending less on defence and removing some of their tens of thousands of troops on the borders.
PTI |
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FBI sleuths head for Riyadh Dubai, May 14 Investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will assist the Saudi police in investigating the Monday night serial bombings of three residential compounds, housing mainly westerners, including defence contractors and advisors to the Saudi Arabia National Guard and other military units. A Saudi-US business establishment was also attacked later. The FBI team includes a dozen agents, led by senior officials from the counter-terrorism division. The USA has asked all non-essential diplomats and their family members in the kingdom to return home. The US Embassy in Riyadh remained closed for second day due to security reasons. Updating the toll figure of 29, the Saudi Interior Ministry said today 34 persons died in the attacks. The five new casualties are a British, an Irish, an Australian of Lebanese origin, a Filippino and one unidentified corpse. Nearly 200 persons, including nine Indians, were wounded in the attacks. A number of people were still unaccounted for. The victims of the bombings also included nine suspected attackers. Wearing surgical gloves, Saudi defence workers sifted through the debris of the devastated sites looking for bodies as well as clues that could lead to the identities of the attackers. RIYADH: US President George W. Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz discussed by telephone late last night the tragic terror attacks on expatriates. “President Bush expressed to Prince Abdullah his condolences for the victims of the terror attacks, which were carried out in Riyadh on Monday by a handful of criminals,” the official SPA agency said.
PTI, AFP |
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Al-Qaida can strike at will: US experts Washington, May 14 While it was too early to definitely pin the massive, coordinated car bombings in Riyadh on Al-Qaida, U.S. officials said the operation bore the characteristics of the group blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the USA. “It says to me that they are alive and well. Some of the top management may have been captured and a lot of the troops may be dispersed, but Al-Qaida lives,’’ Jane Harman, a senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said. “If it can mount this kind of attack in Saudi Arabia, it can mount this kind of attack in Europe or the USA, Harman of California said, adding she was presuming it was Al-Qaida.
Reuters |
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30 killed in suicide bomb attack
Moscow, May 14 |
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