In June of 1985 I was eight years old. I don’t even remember hearing about this attack ever, at all, until I came home from work in January 2003 and found a Juror Summons a (Criminal) one in my mailbox. At first I was excited as all get out. It was right up my alley something with all the crazy serial killer books I read I had pictured doing many a time in my head.
2002 didn’t end well, 2003 would be the year I started to see the shrink I still see today. I remember thinking that it was ‘just my luck’ as well that this would undoubtedly bring even more stress into my life before I even saw it:
You have been summonsed to appear as a jury panelist for a criminal trial, Regina vs. Malik, Bagri, and Reyat commonly referred to as the AIR INDIA TRIAL.
The date of jury selection is March 29, 2003.
Estimates of trial length run from TWENTY FOUR TO THIRTY SIX MONTHS.
So then I thought HOLY FUCK what does this even mean? And when I told my work they agreed that is was ‘just my luck’ which was awkward and we all chuckled but none of us were laughing.
I headed straight upstairs to the internet and had reinforcements on the way over in the way of one best friend Hannah and we searched for information on it and back then it was harder to find and I got scared searching for information on it WHAT IF THEY KNEW?
I believe strongly in civic duty, but at the time, for a woman of twenty-five living alone and knowing that it had nothing to do with the books I’d read I just simply was not mentally sound enough to appear. In the ten days I had to send them back my Juror Certification Form, I spent it getting letters quoting a medical condition from my family Doctor and my work appointed in the mean time therapist. It wasn’t just my depression though it was also my headaches. There was just no way.
Just thinking about being on that jury scared the living shit out of me. This was when all the true crime novels flipped in my head from jury duty is cool to holy fuck who wants to be on this JURY ummm not ME or any (Criminal) juries talk about a romanticized wake up call, I’m into the darker side of life the macabre the tainted but JURY TAMPERING in neon blared in front of those twenty five year old eyes and I chose sanity.
In the end not only did it turn out to be one of the largest, if not the largest summons sent out here up until the Pickton case broke, even former Vancouver Canuck, Trevor Linden was summonsed. I’m pretty sure trying to at least make the playoffs was his way out of having to appear. It did eventually go to a judge only trial. I don’t think I was the only one afraid of jury tampering. Even knowing with all the people summonsed I probably wasn’t going to get picked with my luck I wasn’t about to take that chance, and with my request not to appear accepted I tried not to think about it, there were parts that were undeniably stressful and scary, about being called for THAT jury with our without a mental illness.
In all honesty I didn’t follow the trial but I remember being outraged at the verdict, all were found not guilty except for Reyat he plead guilty to manslaughter admitting to building the bomb used on the flight, he got five years and was denied parole in 2007.
Earlier in the week I watched the movie Air India 182, a documentary by award winning Canadian Film director Sturla Gunnarsson and was impressed but the whole thing was surreal a total mishmash of emotions when it hit me that I was eight years old, bloody EIGHT when this happened and then at twenty-five it showed up in my mailbox via the judicial system and here I was listening to the family members of the victims recount that day, seeing the pain on their faces and talk about it with little resolve given the outcome. Any thoughts of even possibly being in a court room at that time were not a nice place to picture.
On June 22, 1985 , Air India 182 left Montréal, bound for Delhi via London Heathrow. It never made it.
Four hours after takeoff, 200 miles off the Irish coast, a bomb ripped through the baggage compartment and the plane disintegrated at 30,000 feet, killing all 329 people on board. It was the world’s deadliest act of aviation terror before 9/11.
Now at thirty-one the movie frightened me, but not likely in entirely rational ways and so I highly recommend it. It was very moving, it was heart breaking and made me tremendously angry but it is done in an extremely tasteful manner. I don’t know it just makes me think about all the non fiction I read and all of the documentaries I watch and how there is always something in them that gives me that disconnect whether right or not, whether I donate to charity or not, and this movie didn’t have that for me. So I would have to say it scared me real.
