Air India bomb-maker and former Duncan resident Inderjit Singh Reyat is prohibited from taking part in any political activities as one of various conditions of his mandatory parole, a decision maintained by the Parole Board of Canada in response to a request from Reyat’s lawyer to change the condition.
In the Parole Board of Canada’s newly released Feb. 29 decision, spokesman G. McRae noted that “after a thorough file review and consideration of your lawyer’s comments about your rights under the Charter to participate in political matters, the Board finds that your political views and your associations with others of a similar mindset were directly risk related and led to the murders of many innocent people.”
Reyat, who was convicted in connection with a bombing in Japan and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 which killed 331 people, was granted mandatory parole after serving two-thirds of a nine-year sentence in a parole board decision dated Jan. 14 of this year.
Reyat was required to be released to serve out the remaining third of his sentence until August, 2018 at a halfway house in an undisclosed location. There were a number of conditions attached to the mandatory parole, including that Reyat not take part in any political activities and not access or possess any extremist propaganda.
The parole board’s decision notes that it considered altering Reyat’s prohibition of involvement in political activities “but to make it more broad would make it unenforceable.”
The decision says that special conditions restricting Reyat are necessary for public safety.
“Without this special condition, your risk to reoffend and your opportunity to reintegrate safely into a law abiding community would be hampered,” McRae writes.
“Considering the nature and gravity of your offence, the Board takes no action on your request.”