A jury deliberating the fate of a man charged with perjury related to his testimony at the Air India bombing trial has returned to the courtroom with a question for the judge.
Jurors were well into their first day of deliberations today when they wanted to know the definition of the word procure in connection with dynamite he obtained after he was asked to build an explosive device.
B.C. Supreme Court Judge Mark McEwan consulted a dictionary and told the nine women and three men on the jury that procure means to obtain, get or acquire.
Reyat testified in 2003 at the trial of Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik, who were charged with mass murder related to two Air India bombings that killed 331 people.
During his testimony Reyat said he collected bomb-making material, including dynamite, from various sources after a leader of a Sikh separatist group asked him to construct an explosive device.
He said he needed the dynamite to blow up stumps on his Duncan, B.C., property, but the Crown said there were no stumps to be blown up and that Reyat lied under oath about that and other matters involving the 1985 Air India disasters.
