Vancouver: A main accused in the Air India bombing case tried to participate in a failed bid to assassinate the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in New York, a former agent with Canada's spy agency has said.

Willy Laurie on Friday (Dec 19, 2003) said Ajaib Singh Bagri tried to infiltrate a conference in New York in 1985, so that he could help assassinate Rajiv Gandhi.

According to Laurie, Bagri revealed his part in the plot to a woman – the key witness in the Air India bombing trial – who cannot be named under a court order.

The woman relayed the information to Laurie in September 1987, in an interview while he was gathering intelligence on Sikh terrorism, the Canadian press reported.

"She told me the purpose of him (Bagri) going to New York was to take part in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi," said Laurie, who was with Canada's spy agency CSIS and, now an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

He also said the woman told him that Bagri was sent to New York by Talwinder Singh Parmar, the now- dead alleged mastermind of the June 23, 1985 Air India bombings.

The prosecution, meanwhile, referred to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report that said several Sikh militants were arrested in New York for conspiring to kill Rajiv Gandhi in June 1985.

Bagri and co-accused Ripudaman Singh Malik are facing murder and conspiracy charges in the blasts, which killed 331 people. While one explosion killed two baggage handlers at Tokyo airport, another one on Air India's Kanishka aircraft took the life of 329 people as it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

PTI