Ex-para grilled over Bloody Sunday
An ex-paratrooper yesterday was warned he could face criminal charges for the murder of four people during the civil rights march massacre – known as Bloody Sunday – in Northern Ireland over thirty years ago.
Lord Saville’s inquiry, currently held at Central Hall in Westminster, is investigating the killing of 13 civilians by British troops in Derry on Jan 30, 1972.
Counsel for the Saville inquiry, Christopher Clarke, QC, said the man, now in his fifties, could face criminal charges for the killings and for perjuring evidence at the original inquiry led by Lord Widgery.
Mr Clarke QC said: “What is alleged in relation to each of those four people is that you shot them without justification, that is to say that you murdered them: Do you follow?”
The man, referred to as Soldier F, denies the charge of murder.
He told the inquiry: “As I refer to my statements, the people I shot are the petrol bombers or a person who had a weapon.”
But the man admitted yesterday to killing Bernard McGuigan, who was shot in the back of the head despite waving a white handkerchief.
Soldier F, a lance corporal in the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment at the time, admitted to firing 13 rounds at demonstrators.
He accepted that he shot dead 17-year-old Michael Kelly at a barricade in Rossville Street in the Bogside. The youth was reportedly armed with a nail bomb.
He also said he shot dead a second nail bomber, William McKinney, and a man armed with a pistol, Patrick Doherty.
The inquiry was set up in 1998 by Tony Blair following pressure by families of those killed and injured.
