Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:14 pm Post subject: Bloody Sunday killings to be ruled unlawful
Bloody Sunday killings to be ruled unlawful Soldiers face prosecution over fatal civilian shootings after 12-year inquiry publishes findings
The long-awaited report into the Bloody Sunday massacre will conclude that a number of the fatal shootings of civilians by British soldiers were unlawful killings, the Guardian has learned.
Lord Saville's 12-year inquiry into the deaths, the longest public inquiry in British legal history, will conclude with a report published next Tuesday, putting severe pressure on the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland to prosecute soldiers.
Lord Trimble, the former leader of the Ulster Unionists and one of the architects of the Good Friday agreement, revealed to the Guardian that when Tony Blair agreed to the inquiry in 1998, he warned the then prime minister that any conclusion that departed "one millimetre" from the earlier 1972 Widgery report into the killings would lead to "soldiers in the dock".
One unionist MP who did not wish to be named described the conclusion of unlawful killings as a "hand-grenade with the pin pulled out that is about to be tossed into the lap of the PPS" in Northern Ireland.
Thirteen unarmed civilians, all of them male, were shot dead at a civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry in January 1972. A 14th man died of his wounds several months later.
The killings electrified nationalist protests against British rule in Northern Ireland and Bloody Sunday became a critical moment in the history of the Troubles, dramatically boosting the popularity of the Provisional IRA in the province and, according to many people, acting as a catalyst for much of the violence that followed.
The results of Saville's hearing will be released to the public at 3.30pm on Tuesday when David Cameron announces its publication to the House of Commons.
Up to 10,000 people are expected to march around lunchtime that day into Guildhall Square in Derry, where they will watch live reports about the inquiry's conclusions on giant television screens. They will trace the same route that the civil rights marchers had attempted to take on Bloody Sunday, which the Stormont government, dominated in 1972 by unionists, had banned.
Families of those killed in the massacre 38 years ago have focused on a number of soldiers who were identified and gave evidence during the 12 year old tribunal. These include "Soldier F" who, according to the relatives of the Bloody Sunday dead, shot four to six of the victims. Told during the inquiry that his evidence amounted to perjury, he did not demur.
Though witnesses were protected from self-incrimination, an exception was made for perjury. And government law officers made it clear that criminal prosecution against an individual was not ruled out in the light of any evidence that emerged from other witnesses or from documents. Sources familiar with the inquiry said yesterday that Saville may not explicitly recommend criminal prosecutions and much will depend on his message, whether direct or indirect, to the PPS.
The PPS, headed by Sir Alasdair Fraser, will make the decision on prosecutions because the killings occurred in its jurisdiction, rather than the Crown Prosecution Service in London. Fraser will have to take into account the public interest in a prosecution, and the likelihood of securing a conviction.
Among survivors who were shot on the day and the families of the dead, there are many demanding that a number of British paratroopers should be prosecuted through the courts.
They could initiate a private prosecution and sue for compensation in a civil court.
Trimble, a Nobel peace prize winner, said that during the all-party talks of late 1997 and early 1998 he told Blair that a new inquiry would end up with soldiers being dragged through the courts.
He described the establishment of the tribunal during the peace talks as a "sideline deal independent from the Belfast agreement".
On his warning to Blair, Trimble said: "I just reminded him that the Widgery report of 1972 concluded that the troops' behaviour, to quote from the report, 'bordered on the reckless'.
"Then I told the prime minister that if you moved from one millimetre from the that conclusion you were into the area of manslaughter, if not murder," he said.
"I pointed out to Blair that we would see soldiers in the dock. I told him that at the time of the talks leading to the Belfast agreement," Trimble said.
Blair and the then Northern Ireland secretary, Mo Mowlam, announced the establishment of the Saville inquiry on 30 January 1998 – the 26th anniversary of the shootings, citing "compelling new evidence".
At the time Blair and Mowlam, who has since died, were locked in the intensive negotiations between unionists and nationalist that ultimately led to the Good Friday agreement of 1998.
However, Trimble said that the inquiry was "not in any way part of the agreement".
He added: "At the time of the talks the parties, it seemed to me, did not want to be obsessing on the past. The problem was that Blair, for reasons that I can't understand, gave in to pressure for a selective inquiry."
that's great news - though the fact that the commanders who ordered them to open fire will probably be dead or very old has probably a lot to do with why it's taken so long.
Still, as long as they get the ones who pulled the triggers.
the fact that the commanders who ordered them to open fire will probably be dead or very old has probably a lot to do with why it's taken so long.
Still, as long as they get the ones who pulled the triggers.
I suppose that's the best one can hope for after 4 decades. It would be unfortunate if it gets reduced to "a few bad apples" when the same old barrel doesn't even get sprayed down.
This may be another case of justice delayed [being] justice denied.
Bloody Sunday: Soldiers may face prosecution over 'unjustifiable' killings David Cameron apoloises for killings by British paras as Saville report opens possibility for prosecution of soldiers
Prosecutors in Northern Ireland are considering whether to bring charges against British soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday killings after a damning report by a senior judge concluded the shooting dead of 14 people in Derry 38 years ago was "unjustified and unjustifiable".
David Cameron issued the first formal apology on behalf of the British state as he announced the publication of Lord Saville's long-awaited report into the day that became the catalyst for 30 years of violent conflict in Northern Ireland. Drawing on the conclusions of the 5,000-page, 10-volume report, Cameron said the government was "deeply sorry" for the conduct of the soldiers who opened fire while trying to police a banned civil rights march on 30 January 1972. On the day, 13 marchers died and another 15 were wounded, one of whom died later in hospital.
The prime minister said the Saville inquiry showed soldiers lied about their involvement in the killings, and that all of those who died were innocent. He said the inquiry was absolutely clear and there were no ambiguities about the conclusions. "What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong," Cameron told the Commons.
The prosecution service in Northern Ireland said tonight it was considering the implications. "The director of public prosecutions, together with the chief constable, will consider the report to determine the nature and extent of any police inquiries and investigations which may be required to enable informed decisions as to prosecution to be taken," it said in a statement.
Cameron began his Commons statement by saying he was deeply patriotic and did not want to believe anything bad about his country. But he said the conclusions of the 12-year inquiry were absolutely clear.
The Saville inquiry found:
• the order sending British soldiers into the Bogside should not have been given.
• none of those killed by British soldiers was armed with firearms and no warning was given by the soldiers.
• "on balance", British soldiers fired the first shot.
• Martin McGuiness, now the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, "was probably armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun" but there was no evidence he fired the weapon and this provided no justification for the soldiers opening fire.
Cameron said the casualties were caused by the soldiers "losing their self control". Relatives cheered as they watched Cameron's statement, relayed to screens outside the Guildhall in Derry. Denis Bradley, a former priest who was on the Bloody Sunday march and played a key part in secret talks that brought about the IRA ceasefire of 1994, said he was amazed at how damning the findings were against the soldiers. "This city has been vindicated, this city has been telling the truth all along."
In his report, Saville uses the word "unjustifiable" repeatedly to describe the fatal shootings carried out by the parachute regiment – a judgment that opens up the possibility of legal action against the soldiers involved. But the report does not hold the British government at the time directly responsible, saying there was "no evidence" that it encouraged the use of lethal force against the demonstrators. Most of the damning criticism of the military was directed at the soldiers on the ground who fired on the civilians. Saville said that Lance Corporal F – who was identified as shooting between four to six of the victims – had falsely claimed that he had shot a nail bomber.
"Lance Corporal F did not fire in panic or fear ... we are sure that he instead fired either in the belief that no one at the rubble barricade was posing a threat of causing death and serious injury, or not caring whether or not anyone there was posing a threat," the report said.
Saville finds that one senior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford, ignored an instruction from his brigadier that he should not order troops to go deeper into the Bogside, the area of Derry where the protest took place. The report says that on Bloody Sunday there had been "a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline among the soldiers". Saville also concludes that many of the soldiers lied to his inquiry: "Many of these soldiers have knowingly put forward false accounts in order to seek to justify their firing."
Under the rules of the inquiry the soldiers were granted immunity from prosecutions resulting from their evidence, but they could be prosecuted for perjury. The report also focuses on the actions of two republican gunmen and said that the Official IRA men had gone to a pre-arranged sniping position. But Saville found that their actions did not provoke in any way the shootings by the parachute regiment.
Amnesty International raised the possibility that Saville's conclusion that the shootings were unjustified could lead to legal action against the soldiers. Kate Allen, Amnesty's UK director, said: "We shall be examining the detailed findings of the report. But the right to redress of the victims and their families is only partly met by establishing the facts about what happened that day; full accountability for any unlawful actions by state agents will also need to be ensured."
Cameron sidestepped the question of prosecutions when pressed by the acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman. He said the decision should be "entirely independent" and up to the director of public prosecutions. Harman said a comprehensive process of reconciliation had to be able to address the "legacy issue of the Troubles". She asked Cameron whether he had been asked to consider the questions of immunity from prosecution "if we are instead to take things forward by a wider process of reconciliation?".
Sir Reg Empey, the Ulster Unionist leader, called for an end to Bloody Sunday-style inquiries: "Northern Ireland cannot endure an endless list of Saville-type inquiries. We cannot continually be dragged back to our darkest years. The question now facing Northern Ireland is whether we continue to pursue costly individual cases or are we, as a society, to concentrate on building a shared future, freed from the mistakes of the past?"
Lord Maginnis of Drumglas, an Ulster Unionist peer, said the report was "one-eyed" in its emphasis on just 14 of the 180 violent deaths in the province in the preceding year. But Mark Durkan, the Derry MP and former SDLP leader, said the findings had finally cleared the names of the dead and wounded. "This is a day of huge moment and deep emotion in Derry. The people of my city didn't just live through Bloody Sunday, they lived with it since. This is a day to receive and reflect on the clear verdicts of Saville and not pass party verdicts on Saville."
Bloody Sunday inquiry: key findings Lord Saville's report covers 5,000 pages and took 12 years to produce. It considered the orders given by commanding officers, whether those killed posed a serious threat, and the role of the IRA and the state
Orders given by commanding officers
• The inquiry expressed surprise that Major General Robert Ford, then Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland, should have written in a 1972 memorandum (unrelated to the Derry march) that selected riot ringleaders should be shot after a warning was given. Although Ford decided that 1 Para should be deployed as an arrest force on 30 January 1972 in the event of rioting, Saville concluded "he neither knew nor had reason to know at any stage that his decision would or was likely to result in soldiers firing unjustifiably on that day".
• Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford did not comply with Brigadier MacLellan's order to tackle rioters by sending one group of troops into William Street "but not to conduct a running battle down Rossville Street". Instead, Wilford sent additional soldiers into Bogside. "The effect was that soldiers of Support Company did chase people down Rossville Street," said Saville. "Some of those people had been rioting but many were peaceful marchers. There was thus no separation between peaceful marchers and those who had been rioting and no means whereby soldiers could identify and arrest only the latter."
• Wilford either "deliberately disobeyed" MacLellan's order or "failed for no good reason to appreciate the clear limits on what he had been authorised to do". He also failed to inform MacLellan of what he had done. "Had he done so, MacLellan might well have called off the arrest operation altogether, on the grounds that this deployment would not have provided sufficient separation between rioters and civil rights marchers."
• Wilford did not pass on to Major Loden (the commander of Support Company) the brigadier's instructions not to chase people down Rossville Street, "nor did he impose any limits on how far the soldiers of Support Company should go".
Did those killed provoke the shooting by British soldiers?
• "None of the casualties shot by soldiers of Support Company was armed with a firearm or (with the probable exception of Gerald Donaghey) a bomb of any description. None was posing any threat of causing death or serious injury. In no case was any warning given before soldiers opened fire," the report said.
• Evidence from soldiers to the inquiry that they had fired after coming under attack was rejected. "We have concluded that none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers. No one threw or threatened to throw a nail or petrol bomb at the soldiers on Bloody Sunday."
• The credibility of the accounts given by the soldiers was "materially undermined" because all soldiers bar one who were responsible for the casualties "insisted that they had shot at gunmen or bombers, which they had not". Saville said: "Many of these soldiers have knowingly put forward false accounts in order to seek to justify their firing".
Why did the soldiers open fire?
• The report concluded that officers reacted because of "the mistaken belief among them that republican paramilitaries were responding in force to their arrival in the Bogside", based on initial shots fired by one of their number, namely, Lieutenant N. "Our overall conclusion is that there was a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline among the soldiers of Support Company".
• Saville admonished Lieutenant N "not only for firing, but also for failing to realise the effect that his firing would be likely to have on the other soldiers who had come into the Bogside".
The role of the state
• Saville rejected the contention that the state had authorised the troops to use "unwarranted lethal force" or sanctioned them "with reckless disregard as to whether such force was used".
• It also rejected the idea that the government had more generally "tolerated, if not encouraged" the use of unjustified lethal force in Northern Ireland, thereby creating the conditions which led to the Bloody Sunday attacks.
What role did the IRA play?
• The report said that republican paramilitaries had been responsible for "some firing" but the scale had been exaggerated by British soldiers and "none of this firing provided any justification for the shooting of the civilian casualties".
• The report concluded that two Official IRA men had gone to a pre-arranged sniping position and shots had been fired by republican paramilitaries that were not merely in response to the British soldiers opening fire.
• Saville said Martin McGuiness, now the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, "was probably armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun" but said that there was no evidence he fired the weapon and that this provided no justification for the soldiers opening fire.
• It also found evidence of people with nail and petrol bombs and at least one car used to hold weapons in Glenfada Park North. The inquiry said the Official IRA had tried to conceal the whole truth about its activities but that the Glenfada Park North area was clear of weapons when the soldiers arrived.
Well, I guess I have to eat my hat. These findings sound quite unequivocal.
Although soldiers did receive immunity for any acts revealed by their testimony, they should not be shielded from the law for their actions if they purgered themselves. The whole point of a truth commission, after all, is to tell the truth. It sounds like that Lt. Col should also face some consequences if he knowingly ignored an "instruction" (also known as an "order" in army circles) from a superior officer.
As an aside, does "Bogside" have the connotation I think it does? Or is "Bog" only synonymous with "Toilet" in Australia?
PARA FLAG FURY
Michael McMonagle
18 January 2013
derryjournal.com
A brother of one of those murdered on Bloody Sunday last night slammed those responsible for erecting Parachute Regiment flags in the city ahead of the anniversary of the massacre. John Kelly, whose 17 year-old brother, Michael, was among 14 people shot dead by British paratroopers on January 30 1972, was speaking after flags bearing the regiment’s insignia were erected in Drumahoe and the Fountain in the early hours of yesterday morning. Last night the flag at the Fountain was taken down after efforts by community activists on both sides of the interface.
Mr Kelly said the erection of the flags was an attempt to raise tensions arising from the ongoing dispute over the flying of the Union flag in Belfast. “The people who actually erected these flags need to wise up,” he told the ‘Journal’. “They are trying to incorporate Bloody Sunday into the flag dispute and antagonise people. Unfortunately this is not surprising for the Bloody Sunday relatives. We have moved on, particularly after the Saville report, but there are still those who, for sectarian reasons, have trouble with Bloody Sunday,” he said.
He also said he does not believe people living in unionist areas support the flying of the Paras flag. “I would like to think most people who live in these areas don’t support those who put up these flags,” he said.
The erection of the flags was also criticised by local politicians. SDLP MP Mark Durkan said: “Whatever justification people might feel about flying other flags, displaying the flag of the Parachute Regiment in this city is deliberately offensive. A provocative display like this can only cause distress and anxiety to the people of the Fountain as well as upset in the wider community. Such pointedly offensive deployment of this regimental flag brings no validity to anyone’s position on other flags or emblems.”
Foyle Sinn Féin MLA Raymond McCartney said: “This is provocation and we need leadership from within Unionism to ensure that these flags are taken down immediately. It’s only serving the interests of those opposed to the peace process and heightening community tensions in the city.”
Martin Collins from the IRSP said: “We have been in contact with representatives from the Protestant Unionist Loyalist (PUL) community as well as other Fountain community leaders to try and negotiate with the people concerned to remove the flags. While we respect the PUL community’s right to protest in a peaceful, dignified manner we’d also like to ask the PUL community to respect our culture and displaying provocative flags of a regiment that was responsible for the murder of 14 innocent civilians in the Bogside is a step backward in the relations we have been working so hard to keep.”
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You cannot download files in this forum
