Forty-seven years after the Bloody Sunday massacre that left 14 civil rights activists dead in Northern Ireland, one former U. K. soldier will be charged.
March 14 (UPI) — Forty-seven years after the Bloody Sunday massacre that left 14 civil rights activists dead in Northern Ireland, a former U. K. soldier will be charged with murder and attempted murder.
The Public Prosecution Service will charge an unnamed former soldier, identified as Soldier F, for killing two men, James Wray and William McKinney, and for the attempted murder of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon and Patrick O’Donnell. The announcement brought shock and anger in Derry, Northern Ireland, on Thursday.
Families of massacre victims marched from the Bloody Sunday memorial in the Bogside to the City Hotel where prosecution officials said they would prosecute one soldier.
“I am mindful that it has been a long road for the families to reach this point and today will be another extremely difficult day for many of them,” Public Prosecution Service director Stephen Herron said.
The prosecution service acts independently of the U. K. government and “no one can make the PPS prosecute a particular case, nor stop it from doing so,” the PPS mission statement says.
