The first trial of a former British soldier accused of killing a bloody Sunday is opened on Monday in a Belfast, oriented in the story of Northern Ireland conflict.
The former parathrooper, identified as a “soldier F”, faces two murders and five attempts to kill the 1972 attempts. Each of the most significant events of three decades of “troubles” suffering from the British territory.
He acknowledged as innocent and applied for the case against him last year, but the judge dismissed his claim.
Former soldier is accused of killing civilians James Wray and William McKinney, and with an attempt to kill five others in dealing with the Civil Rights Protest Londonderry – also known as Derry – more than half a century ago.
The British army opened fire to protesters in most Catholic Bogside district in Londonderry, the second largest city in Northern Ireland, 1972. On January 30, 13 people were killed.
The 14th victim died after the wounds.
Hidden from a large curtain society, the soldier F responded “innocent” when each of the seven accusations were made last year.
His request for anonymity and inspection during the trial was filed by the judge.
– State apology –
The relatives of the victims of the massacre are planning to gather outside the court before the trial.
“We waited for 53 long years of justice and we hope we will get it during this trial,” Tony Doherty told Derry on Friday, whose father Patrick was among the bloody victims of Sunday.
The bloody Sunday helped to promote support for the temporary IRA, the main paramilitary organization fighting for United Ireland.
It was one of the most bloody incidents in a conflict called troubles, killing about 3,500 people. It ended mainly in 1998. Peace agreements.
Northern Ireland prosecutors first recommended the Soldier F Stand trial in 2019.
After several other former soldiers collapsed, he refused the case before renewing it in 2022.
The case proved that in Northern Ireland it was deeply distinguished, where the decades of the sectarian violence, which began in the 1960s, continued to throw a long shadow.
Research 1972 After the massacre cleaned the guilt soldiers, Catholics were widely regarded as Caucasians.
This probe, the Widgery Tribunal, closed the prosecution at the time, and only decades after 1998. The peace agreement was a new investigation by Saville.
– Legal story –
This 12-year-old public investigation is the UK Legal History Investigation-Party concluded that British paratroopers lost control and none of the victims posed a threat to death or serious injury.
Prob promoted Prime Minister David Cameron to declare an official state apology for the massacre, calling them “unjustifiable and unjustified.”
Then the Nordic Ireland police opened a murder investigation on a bloody Sunday and finally filed their cases to prosecutors in 2016.
The case against the Soldier F has faced many delays on evidence issues, while other former soldiers have been widely considered unlikely at the time of the court, since many bloody Sunday witnesses have since died.
The controversial UK legislation adopted in accordance with Conservatives in 2023, and the Legacy Law has also actually terminated most of the problems of prosecution by both former soldiers and papers.
Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn officially started in December last year. The process of cancellation of the act.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said Friday Dublin and London were “very close” to agree with a new troubles for troubles in Northern Ireland after meeting with his British Keir Starmer colleague.
2022 November Former British clerk David Holden became the first soldier convicted of murder to be in trouble after 1998. Agreements.
He received a three-year suspended punishment for murder for shooting 23-year-old Aidan Mcanespespie.
PMU/JJ/CW/MJW