Bloody Sunday soldiers ‘off the hook’

Fourteen months after the PSNI announced they were launching a murder inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings, none of the soldiers who killed 14 civilians in Derry and injured a further 22 have been interviewed by the police.

The news emerged at a meeting between the Bloody Sunday families and the PSNI detectives who claimed to be leading an investigation.

A public inquiry in 2010 found that the civil rights demonstrators shot dead by British soldiers in Derry in 1972 were innocent victims.

At the time British judge ‘Lord’ Mark Saville assured the victim’s relatives that their deaths would be investigated by police.

In July last year, PSNI Chief Matt Baggott revealed a murder investigation would be carried out, but warned it could last four years.

However, it has since emerged that resources have only now been made available for the investigation with a much smaller number of detectives assigned to the case than originally planned.

Kate Nash’s brother William was killed and her father Alex was injured when the British Army’s crack 1-Para troops opened fire on innocent people in the city more than 40 years ago.

She said: “I feel that all of this is stalling tactics, to be honest I believe that even the Bloody Sunday inquiry, the second inquiry, was stalling tactics because Lord Saville had powers which he could have used but he didn’t use.

“It tells me there is no intent here to prosecute soldiers.”

Earlier this month, the captain of 1-Para on Bloody Sunday, who was thought by some to have been in the best position to reveal the truth about the British Army’s actions, was shot dead at the hands of an unknown assailant in Nairobi, Kenya.

John Kelly, whose brother also died in the shooting, said he feared the British government was stalling in the hope that certain individuals would also die

Peter Madden, of Madden and Finucane law firm, said: “These are murder suspects and in another other case which the evidence that was available to ground and arrest, the arrest would be made.

“That has hasn’t happened and with no real explanation, there is a suggestion that the civilian witnesses should be questioned first but in my view that would take such a long time.

“The soldiers are on the long finger and probably off the hook for now.”

Urgent Appeal