More than 50 years after the events, a former British soldier was tried as of this Monday, September 15 in Belfast (Ireland-Du-Nord) on Monday, September 15) for two murders and five attempts to kill during the “Bloody Sunday”, one of the bloodiest episodes of the three decades of the northern conflict in Northern Ireland.
So far no soldier has been tested for this “bloody Sunday” on January 30, 1972 in Londnderry, a city also known as Derry, when British paratrooides had opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of Catholic activists, killing 13 people.
The “Soldier F” in front of Justice, 53 years after the drama
The British army said that the paratroopers responded to the fire of “terrorists” of the IRA (Irish Republican Army, paramilitaries opposed to any British presence on the island of Ireland), a version reinforced by a hurried report.
Despite all the testimonies that contradict this version, it was not until 2010 that the innocence of the victims was officially recognized, affected for some on the back or even on the ground, stirring a white handkerchief.
Nicknamed “Soldier F”, the former paratrooper court since Monday is accused of two murders, those of James Wray and William McKinney, and five attempts to kill, during the repression of this meeting. In December, he declared himself innocent before the court of Belfast.
He was hidden behind a curtain to protect his anonymity, which he will also maintain during the trial. The judge granted this protection, his lawyers feared for their safety. A demonstration is scheduled outside the court on Monday before the opening of the trial.
“We expect 53 long years for justice to be done and, we hope, we will get satisfaction thanks to this trial,” said Tony Doherty, whose father Patrick was among the victims of Blood Sunday, in the local media Derry now.
The Office of the Prosecutor of Northern Ireland had initiated criminal procedures against “Soldier F” in 2019. Then they were abandoned and then relaunched in 2022.
The “Bloody Sunday”, tragic turn of the Irish conflict of the north
The massacre of the “Bloody Domingo”, immortalized by the tube of the Irish rock group U2 “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (1983), had the effect of haste many young republican Catholics in the arms of anger.
It is one of the darkest moments of the three decades of “disorders” that opposed the Republicans, especially the supporters of reunification with Ireland and the Protestant trade unionists, defenders of the belonging of Ireland of the North to the British crown. It was not until 1998 that Friday’s peace agreement ended this conflict that left about 3,500 dead.
In 2010, after the longest and most expensive public investigation in British history that had recognized the innocence of the victims of “Blood Sunday”, the prime minister of the time, David Cameron, had apologized, describing as “unjustifiable” the facts that day.
From the end of the northern Ireland conflict, only a former British soldier was sentenced: at the beginning of 2023, a three -year suspended sentence against David Holden was pronounced, who had killed a man with a bullet on the back at a control point in 1988. He explained that he had shot because he had wet hands.
Source: BFM TV
