Vancouver: In a dramatic day of testimony at the Kanishka trial, an associate of the key accused Ajaib Singh Bagri told the court that Bagri confessed to his involvement in the 1985 Air India bombings that killed 331 people.

"We did this", Bagri had allegedly told the witness, a New York resident, when the latter met him at a gas station in New Jersey about two weeks after the bombing to express his fears about the crime being linked to him and his Sikh extremist organisation.

The witness, whose identity is protected by a court order, said on the first day of his testimony that Bagri acknowledged his role in the bombings at least three times, a media report said today (Mar 2, 2004).

"When I talked to him, he said 'Why...(would it) bother you?' And he smiled and he said 'we did this'," testified the man, who hails from the same village in Punjab as Bagri and described the accused as a "good friend".

The witness said he questioned Bagri about his role in Air India bombings a second time when they met at a Sikh convention in California in 1987.

He said he asked why one bomb blew up while the plane was in the air and the other when it was on the ground and was told that they were expecting the first bomb in Narista, Japan to go off one hour earlier.

The witness, who is a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant, said he met Bagri at a Sikh temple in December 1997 and asked him how they built the bombs.

"And he said, 'I don't want to open my mouth because the walls have ears. Only two of us know. If a third person will know this we can go in jail'."