The ticket allegedly used to get a bomb on Air-India jetliner Kanishka [Flight 182] was purchased using at least one false name, according to evidence presented on Tuesday in the murder trial of two Sikh men.
Canadian prosecutors used 18-year-old computer records in the first full day of testimony in the trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, who are accused of destroying the aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean in 1985.
Malik, 56, a Vancouver businessman, and Bagri, 53, a Kamloops, British Columbia mill worker, have pleaded not guilty to charges they were responsible for killing all 329 people on board.
The bomb that destroyed Flight 182 off the Irish coast on June 23, 1985, is believed to have been loaded on a Canadian Pacific aircraft in Vancouver that connected with Air-India flights.
Hours earlier, a related explosion killed two workers at Tokyo's Narita airport.
A technician who worked on the computers of Canadian Pacific, which is now part of Air Canada, said the records showed that passenger names on each of the tickets were changed at least once during the purchase process.
The tickets, bought with cash, allowed two unknown men to load luggage, but neither man actually boarded the aircraft. Prosecutors allege the bombers used false names to hide their identities in case the source of the explosions was discovered.
Prosecutors allege Malik and Bagri were part of a Vancouver-based conspiracy of Sikh militants who wanted revenge on India for its 1984 storming of the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine.
The bombing of Flight 182 was the deadliest act of aviation sabotage before the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The trial in Vancouver is expected to last until early 2004.
