LONDON (AP) — The only British soldier charged with a bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland in 1972 has been tried in Belfast for murder in a case that has come to symbolize 30 years of sectarian violence known as “trouble.”
The former paratrooper, the cor head of Lance, named “Soldier F” to protect his identity, was hidden behind a blue curtain that protected him from the view of the 13 families killed when the army started a fire on January 30, 1972, on the 30th of January 1972, on the military’s civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry, known as Delhi.
“The civilians… pose no threat to the soldiers, and the soldiers couldn’t believe they did,” prosecutor Louis Mabrie said in an opening statement at Belfast Crown Court. “The civilians were not armed, so they were simply shot when they fled.”
The Army veteran pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and five attempted murder, which was the most deadly shooting of a long-term conflict between predominantly Ireland’s Catholic supporters and predominantly Protestant forces who wanted to remain part of Britain.
The conflict largely ended with the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998, which created a system for Republicans and union members to share power in Northern Ireland, but tensions remain. Families of the murdered civilians continue to report for justice, and Army veterans supporters complain that their losses are being downplayed and that they are being unfairly targeted in the investigation.
A long march to court
Before the trial, walking behind a banner carrying photos of the dead and reading “Towards Justice,” families of victims who had been campaigning for more than half a century to account for the murder marched on the court.
John McKinney called it a major day.
“It took me 53 years to get to this point, and I’ve been fighting all the possibilities to get there,” said McKinney, whose brother William was killed in the shooting.
“Everything we achieved at this point is our relentless commitment and refusal to lie down,” he said. “We will soon be holding our heads high and take the court very proudly, with the knowledge that we are on the right side of history, regardless of the ultimate outcome.”
From agitator to victim
The fact that it took more than half a century for the ordeal to begin reflects the tortured history of the shooting and the foreshadowing the prosecutor’s hurdles.
The government initially said members of the Parachute Regiment were fired in self-defense after being attacked by bombers and gunmen, and formal investigations exempt the troops responsible. A long review afterwards in 2010 found that soldiers fired unarmed civilians who were fleeing and lied about it for decades.
Prime Minister David Cameron then apologized, stating that the murder was “unjust and not unfair.”
The findings cleared the path to the final prosecution of Soldier F, but also suffered from delays and obstacles.
It took seven years from when police began the investigation to when prosecutors announced in 2019 that they would indict Soldier F alone.
Two years later, the prosecutor’s office dropped the case because it didn’t think it would be possible to win the trial. They decided after a judge filed a lawsuit against two soldiers over the murder of an Irish Republican Army leader after finding key prosecutor evidence unacceptable.
Prosecutors against Soldier F have resurrected after McKinney’s family appealed, but Marie acknowledged Monday that the government must clarify legal challenges regarding the use of hearsay-types that have to torpedoed IRA cases.
Confusion and confusion on the street
Mabury also said it is impossible to identify who shot each victim, but the prosecutor’s theory is that he is jointly responsible when soldiers F and others in his battalion pull the trigger of a self-loaded rifle.
Marie described the scene that was confusing as the soldiers began shooting. Some mistakenly mistaken the sound of gunfires for an army that fires rubber bullets, but reality quickly became clear as the bullets began to peel off across the pavement and their bodies began to fall. Most of those shots were hit on the side or back.
“These soldiers lost control of themselves,” Marie said, adding that they “were ashamed of the British forces.”
In an interview with police in 2016, Soldier F refused to answer questions and was convinced that although he had no “reliable memories” of the events of the day, he had properly eliminated his duties as a soldier.
Soldier F is indicted in two counts of murder in the deaths of 22-year-old James Ray and William McKinney (27-year-old William McKinney), and five people have been charged with attempted murder after firing fire on Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon, Patrick O’Donnell and an unarmed civilian.
The three survivors are expected to testify at a trial in a few weeks that will resume on Wednesday.
While the families marched for the victims, some veterans gathered outside the court in favor of their brothers.
Northern Ireland’s Veterans Chair David Johnston said it is important to remember the majority of the nearly 300,000 British troops who served with dignity and restraint, with over 1,000 people losing their lives and thousands more injured during those intense times.
“Many veterans today have been feeling annoyed, angry and in fact felt betrayed by the legacy process since 1998,” he said. “First, there must be a fair and balanced legacy process. This is a process that promotes the rewrite of the history of question, and certainly does not promote the demonization of wholesale for people that do not.”
