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Spies knew of bomb

A Conservative MP says Canada's spy agency knew there was a bomb on the Air India plane that later exploded in midair, killing 329 people.

In a late June speech at a Vancouver church, Tory MP Wai Young said the laws at the time prevented the Canadian Security Intelligence Service from telling the RCMP about the explosive device in June 1985.

Young told the service at Harvest City Church that, as a result, the Mounties could not remove the bomb from Air India Flight 182.

She said the government's recently enacted Bill C-51 remedied the problem by allowing greater information-sharing between agencies.

The federal commission of inquiry into the Air India bombing did not conclude CSIS knew there was a bomb on the plane.

It said government agencies had significant pieces of information that, taken together, would have led a competent analyst to conclude that Flight 182 was at high risk of being bombed by known Sikh terrorists.



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