March 13, 2014 - 9:54 AM
VANCOUVER - Convicted Air India bomb maker Inderjit Singh Reyat has lost the appeal of his prison sentence for perjury in connection to his testimony at the bombing trial.
A B.C. Appeal Court panel rejected the suggestion by his lawyer, Ian Donaldson, that the prison term should be cut to six or seven years.
Reyat was given a nine-year sentence for lying 19 times during the trial that resulted in an acquittal of the two men accused of the 1985 airliner bombing that killed 329 people.
Donaldson told the appeal court that Reyat— who has spent most of his adult life in prison — was remorseful about the bombing deaths and gained nothing when he lied at the trial.
But the appeal court judges say the offence was grave, and the trial judge did not err in finding denunciation was a key factor in sentencing.
Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005 of murder and conspiracy charges by a B.C. Supreme Court judge.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014