Toronto: In a dramatic turn, Inderjit Singh Reyat, one of the three suspects charged in the 1985 bombing of the Air India jetliner "Kanishka" that killed 329 people, mostly Canadians, pleaded guilty on February 10 to manslaughter charges and was sentenced to five years in prison.

In a previously unscheduled court appearance in Vancouver, British Columbia, Reyat pleaded guilty for 329 counts of manslaughter, Canada's public broadcaster CBC reported.

Originally charged with 329 counts of first-degree murder, Reyat pleaded guilty to the same amount of charges of manslaughter, CBC said.

Reyat, along with Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, were charged with conspiracy and murder in the worst case of mass murder in Canada's history, Canadian Television (CTV) reported.

Reyat already served 10 years in a British prison for his role in a blast at Tokyo's Narita airport that occurred an hour before Air India Flight 182 went down.

His plea raised speculation that Reyat would testify against the other two suspects, CTV said.

"Kanishka", the Air India Flight 182 from Montreal to New Delhi, exploded off the coast of Ireland over the Atlantic Ocean near Britain in June 1985. All 329 people aboard, most of them Canadians, were killed.

Reyat also pleaded guilty to aiding in the construction of the bomb that was planted in Kanishka, CBC reported.

Under the plea bargain, Reyat is expected to testify against Bagri and Malik, who have been jailed since 2000, it added.

The three have been awaiting trial for more than two years.

The trial is one of the most long-drawn and high-profile in Canada's legal history, for what was termed Canada's biggest mass murder case.

A special basement courtroom, in which Reyat pleaded guilty on February 10, was fortified for the trial at a cost of more than 7 million Canadian Dollar ($ 4.6 million).

Bulletproof glass separated the judge, court officers, lawyers and defendants from the gallery, and Reyat sat in a special defendants' box also encased in bulletproof glass.

Dozens of armed security officers kept watch on people required to undergo security searches before proceeding to the courtroom.

Reyat holds both British and Canadian citizenship. Malik, a millionaire businessman from Vancouver, and Bagri, a Sikh cleric from Kamloops, British Columbia, were arrested in October 2000 on charges of conspiracy and first-degree murder.

PTI