Vancouver: Government prosecutors in the Kanishka bombing case claimed to produce two key witnesses that would decisively link the accused to the 1985 mid-air explosion off the Ireland coast killing 329 people on board.

While one of the witnesses is a woman who is supposed to have a "loving relationship" with accused Ripudaman Singh Malik, the other is claimed to have been offered to be a 'human sacrifice', lawyer Joe Bellows told the court on September 17.

The witness, who is expected to testify next month, is expected to say that Malik twice confessed to her that he participated in the Air India bombing, Bellows claimed.

She is also expected to testify that in one of the conversations with her, he allegedly admitted that he had booked and paid for an airline ticket on the doomed flight.

The other witness, Bellows said, will give evidence that Malik had asked him to be a "human sacrifice" and asked to take a suitcase with a bomb on an Air-India flight.

The preview of the anticipated testimony came at the start of the most crucial portion of the multi-million Dollar Air-India trial.

Malik and a second accused Ajaib Singh Bagri have been charged with the murder of 329 people killed in the June 25, 1985 explosion of the Kanishka flight from Toronto to London.

They are also on trial for the death of two baggage handlers killed in a bomb explosion at Japan's Narita airport 54 minutes earlier, the 'Globeandmail' reported on September 18.

PTI