Home
Margin of Error
Margin of Terror: A Reporter's Twenty-Year Odyssey Covering the Tragedy of the Air India Bombing, chronicles Salim Jiwa's and Donald J. Hauka's relentless pursuit of Canada's worst terrorist tragedy. This insider's account of the origins of Sikh militancy and the conspiracy that resulted in the twin bombings is compulsively readable. Jiwa, the only reporter on a first-name basis with the terrorists, the police and the victims' families, sheds new light on a dark chapter in Canadian history.
Three hundred and twenty-nine innocent people were killed when a bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182 more than twenty years ago. On the same day, another bomb exploded at Tokyo's airport, killing two baggage handlers. The victims' families, friends and loved ones were promised justice. After the longest and costliest criminal investigation and trial in Canadian history, they are still waiting.
In a riveting "insider's"; account, investigative reporter Jiwa - the first and only reporter on the Air India story continuously from the very beginning - explores the complex underworld of the accused terrorists from their obscure beginnings in Vancouver all the way through the criminal investigations to the trial that ended in a verdict that shocked the country: not guilty.
Jiwa explains in riveting eyewitness detail how the plot originated and unfolded, and who was responsible for both masterminding and carrying out the bombings. Some of the new evidence uncovered includes:
- Air India probe suffered when bug failed: a faulty listening device in the back of a police car failed to record a potentially damning conversation between Inderjit Singh Reyat and Talwinder Singh Parmar, which resulted in the RCMP not being able to press conspiracy charges.
- U.S. law enforcement office owned two guns found in hands of B.C. terrorists: gun found at the home of bomber Reyat and another used to shoot newspaper editor Tara Singh Hayer tracked to a weapons collection owned by California-based Sikh deputy sheriff.
- False assumptions blinded Canada's spy agency to unfolding Air India plot: Sikh extremists were not even at the top of CSIS priority list of terrorists to watch even as Sikh militancy in Canada rocketed into a major problem.
Balanced and fair-minded, Margin of Terror never fails to indict what were inexcusable missteps and mistakes on the part of law enforcement and the prosecution. It is a compulsively readable portrait of the innocent victims and of the heartbroken families and friends for whom dreams of justice and closure remain bitterly unfulfilled.
Salim Jiwa is an award-winning senior investigative journalist with The Province newspaper in Vancouver. The first reporter to introduce the world to Talwinder Singh Parmar - the primary suspect in the Air India Case - Jiwa is an authority on terrorism, appears regularly on television and radio and is a regular consultant on terrorism issues for ABC News in New York. Please visit his Web site: www.flight182.com.
Donald J. Hauka is a journalist, screenwriter and playwright. For twenty years he has been a political reporter and colleague of Jiwa in Vancouver.
Three hundred and twenty-nine innocent people were killed when a bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182 more than twenty years ago. On the same day, another bomb exploded at Tokyo's airport, killing two baggage handlers. The victims' families, friends and loved ones were promised justice. After the longest and costliest criminal investigation and trial in Canadian history, they are still waiting.
In a riveting "insider's"; account, investigative reporter Jiwa - the first and only reporter on the Air India story continuously from the very beginning - explores the complex underworld of the accused terrorists from their obscure beginnings in Vancouver all the way through the criminal investigations to the trial that ended in a verdict that shocked the country: not guilty.
Jiwa explains in riveting eyewitness detail how the plot originated and unfolded, and who was responsible for both masterminding and carrying out the bombings. Some of the new evidence uncovered includes:
- Air India probe suffered when bug failed: a faulty listening device in the back of a police car failed to record a potentially damning conversation between Inderjit Singh Reyat and Talwinder Singh Parmar, which resulted in the RCMP not being able to press conspiracy charges.
- U.S. law enforcement office owned two guns found in hands of B.C. terrorists: gun found at the home of bomber Reyat and another used to shoot newspaper editor Tara Singh Hayer tracked to a weapons collection owned by California-based Sikh deputy sheriff.
- False assumptions blinded Canada's spy agency to unfolding Air India plot: Sikh extremists were not even at the top of CSIS priority list of terrorists to watch even as Sikh militancy in Canada rocketed into a major problem.
Balanced and fair-minded, Margin of Terror never fails to indict what were inexcusable missteps and mistakes on the part of law enforcement and the prosecution. It is a compulsively readable portrait of the innocent victims and of the heartbroken families and friends for whom dreams of justice and closure remain bitterly unfulfilled.
Salim Jiwa is an award-winning senior investigative journalist with The Province newspaper in Vancouver. The first reporter to introduce the world to Talwinder Singh Parmar - the primary suspect in the Air India Case - Jiwa is an authority on terrorism, appears regularly on television and radio and is a regular consultant on terrorism issues for ABC News in New York. Please visit his Web site: www.flight182.com.
Donald J. Hauka is a journalist, screenwriter and playwright. For twenty years he has been a political reporter and colleague of Jiwa in Vancouver.
Submitted on May 2, 2006 in By David.
