Vancouver: A surprise witness has told a Canadian court hearing the Air India bombing case that he donated money to help finance a plot to kill the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Ending three days of testimony, the witness, whose identity is protected under court order, also testified yesterday (Mar 31, 2004) that Ripudaman Singh Malik, one of the prime accused in the case, had requested him in 1984 at a Vancouver Gurudwara to deliver a bomb to the city airport, media reported.

The witness, a 73 year old man, said that he attended several meetings of Sikh activists at the Vancouver home of Talwinder Singh Parmar who, according to prosecutors, was the mastermind of a ring of Sikh extremists in Canada, including Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, the two prime accused.

Parmar was killed in India in 1992 in an armed encounter with police.

The witness said he donated 300 Canadian Dollars to Parmar to help fund the assassination of Gandhi, who was eventually killed by her bodyguards later that year.

The man said that Malik, upon approaching him later, said Parmar had recommended him for the job of delivering the bomb to Vancouver airport. He said he refused to deliver the bomb because he believed innocent people should not be harmed.

"It was Indira Gandhi who ordered the attack (at Golden Temple in Amritsar). She should be killed, not other people," he told the court. At that time, Sikh extremists were mustering support among the community for punishing Indira Gandhi whom they blamed for sacrilege of Golden Temple.