Canada to hold inquiry into Air India bombing

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov 24 (Reuters): Canada will hold an inquiry into whether it could have prevented the 1985 Air India attack and then bungled the investigation of history's deadliest bombing of a civilian airliner, officials have said.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who had earlier opposed holding an inquiry, accepted on Wednesday the recommendation of a report that said the 329 people killed on Flight 182 and their families deserved an examination of unanswered questions.

The report stopped short of calling for a full judicial review of government actions, but said a "focused" inquiry was needed to make sure mistakes in the previous criminal investigation and security lapses were not repeated.

"There is a need for a clear public reckoning with what has happened ...

Have we learned its lessons?" wrote report's author, former Ontario Premier Bob Rae.

"These lives should not be lost in vain." Air India Flight 182 was destroyed on June 23, 1985, off the Irish coast, killing 329 people on a flight from Canada to India via London.

A near-simultaneous attack on a second Air India flight killed two Tokyo airport workers.

Investigators allege the bombings were the work of radical Sikh separatists living in Western Canada, who wanted revenge on the Indian government for its bloody 1984 storming of the Sikh Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar.

The government appointed Rae in April to review the case amid public uproar after a judge acquitted two Sikh activists charged with the bombings.

A third person pleaded guilty to reduced charges.

The criminal investigation was marked by controversy from its early stages, including charges that fighting between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada's spy agency led to the destruction of potentially key evidence.

"We need to get at this question of how these two agencies are working together," Rae told reporters in Ottawa.

There are also accusations that Canada failed to heed warnings from India that an unspecified attack was pending, and Canadian spies, watching suspects near Vancouver before the attack, failed to act on evidence they were building a bomb.

Rae said the inquiry should not repeat the criminal investigation, which police say has not ended, despite the verdict.

He also warned that some of the inquiry may have to be held in secret so security activities are not revealed.

McLellan said she will ask Rae to head the new inquiry and promised it would go ahead even if the country has a federal election early next year - likely to be called next week if the minority Liberal government loses a non-confidence motion.

"I made a commitment on behalf of the government of Canada to move ahead quickly," McLellan told reporters in Ottawa.

She had said immediately after the Vancouver verdict that an inquiry was not needed because Canada had improved its security measures after the bombing.

Most of those killed in the Flight 182 bombing were Canadian citizens travelling to India to visit relatives, and there have been allegations the government did not take the attack seriously because the victiwere not white.

"I encountered an entirely legitimate anger that this tragedy has been insufficiently understood and embraced as a Canadian event," wrote Rae.

Relatives welcomed the report, but said an inquiry should also look at issues such the financing of extremists groups linked to terror attacks and the ability of Canada's courts to deal with large cases such as Air India.

"It is time now for action and finally getting answers for all these failures," said Lata Paba, whose husband died on Flight 182.