The anonymous soldier is charged with two counts of murder and four of attempted murder over the infamous killings
A former British soldier is set to be prosecuted in connection with the deaths of two civil rights protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland, 47 years ago, part of an incident known as Bloody Sunday, prosecutors said Thursday.
But the identity of the former soldier, identified only as Soldier F, has yet to be revealed.
The veteran will face prosecution for the murders of James Wray and William McKinney and the attempted murders of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon and Patrick O’Donnell.
Sixteen other soldiers under investigation will not face prosecution in the shootings, which took place at the height of the unrest in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles. Prosecutors say there is not enough evidence to try them.
The charges against Soldier F follow a decade-long investigation that concluded soldiers killed 13 unarmed demonstrators protesting Britain’s detention of suspected Irish nationalists. Some 28 people were shot in total.
But the results of a long-running inquiry that concluded in 2010 could not be used in any prosecution and Thursday’s charges resulted from a separate police investigation into the incident.
He joined the 1st battalion of Britain’s famous Parachute Regiment in 1966, the Telegraph reports, and was a lance corporal at the time of the killings on Jan. 30,1972. The inquiry into the killings, conducted by Britain’s Lord Saville, granted anonymity to all military witnesses involved, but the report makes references to Soldier F being called “Dave” by other soldiers. He is now said to be in his 70s.
Its final report covered some 5,000 pages, costing $352 million. It had been set up after an earlier inquiry into the killings was deemed a whitewash.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland first launched a murder probe in 2012, after Lord Saville’s Bloody Sunday Inquiry found that all of those who died were innocent civilians who had not posed a threat on the day, the Irish Times reports.
